How to test an Internet connection with bash?

Question

How can an internet connection be tested without pinging some website? I mean, what if there is a connection but the site is down? Is there a check for a connection with the

Answer 1

The top voted answer does not work for MacOS so for those on a mac, I've successfully tested this:

GATEWAY=`route -n get default | grep gateway`
if [ -z "$GATEWAY" ]
  then
    echo error
else
  ping -q -t 1 -c 1 `echo $GATEWAY | cut -d ':' -f 2` > /dev/null && echo ok || echo error
fi

tested on MacOS High Sierra 10.12.6