$re = '/^([[:alpha:]]+:\/\/.+?[?&]mod=)(.+?)(:.+)/m';
$str = 'Example: LINK: http://l.corp.help.com/help/me.php?mod=jp_james:thank you
http://l.corp.help.com/help/me.php?mod=jp_james:thank you
http://l.corp.help.com/help/me.php?type=testmod=jp_james:thank you
';
preg_match($re, $str, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php