URL
Short for Uniform Resource Locator, URL is a form of URI and is a standardized naming convention for addressing documents accessible over the Internet or Intranet. An example of a URL is http://www.computerhope.com, which is the URL for the Computer Hope web site. Below is additional information about each of the sections of the http URL.
http://www.computerhope.com/index.htm
The http:// stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol and enables the browser to know what protocol it is going to use to access the information specified in the domain.
Next, www. that stands for World Wide Web, is used to distinguish the content. This portion of the URL is not required and many times can be left out. For example, typing "http://computerhope.com" would still get you to the Computer Hope web page. This portion of the address can also be substituted for an important sub page known as a subdomain. For example, http://support.microsoft.com is the support section of Microsoft's page.
Next, computerhope.com is the domain name for the web site. The last portion of the domain is known as the "domain suffix" or TLD and is used to identify the type or location of web site. For example, .com is short for commercial. There are dozens of other domain suffixes available.
Finally, index.htm is the actual web page on the domain. If the page you're viewing is several directories deep it may have additional directories listed in-between the domain and the page. For example, the page you're currently viewing has a URL of http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/u/url.htm, this page is in the jargon/u/ directory.
A URL is not explicit to HTTP addresses; FTP, TFTP, Telnet, and other addresses are also considered URLs and will not follow the same syntax as shown in our above example.
What characters are not allowed in a URL?
Most people realize that a space is not allowed in a URL. However, it is also important to realize as documented in RFC 1738 the URL string can only contain alphanumeric characters and !$-_+*'(),. Any other characters that are required in the URL must be encoded.
- Does capitalization and spaces matter in Internet addresses?
- All Internet related questions and answers.
Also see: Address, cURL, Internet, Internet definitions, Intranet, URI, URL Shortener, Whack