def METHOD_NAME(url):
    """
    Takes in a string and returns it as a cleaned url, or empty if the string is not a valid URL.
    """
    url = clean_text(url, True)
    url = url.replace(" ", "%20")
    if not re.match(r"^\w+?://", url):
        url = "http://" + url
    try:
        URLValidator()(url)
        return url
    except ValidationError:
        logger.warning("URL not valid: " + url)
        return None