Interpret a URL from a database

We have an old classic ASP application that pulls a URL from an MSSQL database and we've had people recently ask about the URL, when clicked, going to a relative path. So, we'd have a URL of http://ourdomain.com/db_url and of course that link wouldn't exist.

I need to fix that output to the browser window, so that if a user clicks the URL, it takes them to the actual URL.

I could put "http://" in front of the db_url information, but then the URLs already being prefixed with "http://" would have "http://http://db_url" and that doesn't work.

I was looking at the Replace String function, but I cannot seem to implement it where I need it.

I get this to work:

<%

Dim string_var,string_find,string_replace

string_var= objProfile.FieldValue("db_url")

string_find= "http://"

string_replace=""

strURL = Response.Write Replace(string_var,string_find,string_replace)

%>

This returns the URL without the "http://", so now I need to implement it into the actual output in the web browser window.

We currently use:
<a href="http://<%=objProfile.TextField("db_url")%>" target=_new"><%=objProfile.TextField("db_url")%></a>

I need to figure out how to mix the Dim with the html output, so that I'm using the replaced URL where "db_url" exists.

Any help?