URL is a kind of URI(Uniform Resource Identifier) that points to a specific web resource in a website in an active network. This resource may be a videosharing, a text, a document, an infographic or any file in a webpage. When you search any term on the search engine, your browser points to a specific location with the help of URL to bring out the required responses and it must reach the destination where a web element resides that an onliner tries to find out against an inquiry. Thus said, URL not only points to where a web resource is but also entails the process as how to retrieve it.
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What URL stands for ?
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator . It is a kind of address of each post, page, catagory, text, video, audeo or anything else that has its own location within a website.
Is URL a web address ?
As a beginner you can ask whether a URL is as same as web address. Because, man is inquisitive and curious. He always wants to know the future. That’s a good endeavour worthy of praise. But before going to differentiate we ought to analyze the features of each one. So let’s know the defination of web address. The word ‘web‘ referrs to anything that has its own location on world wide web which collectively consists of all the websites of the world. Now address referrs to location where something stays or can be found. Thus said, web address simply points to location of a post, page or anything else within the site which can be found and handled by a browser. Suppose you are going to find out a term “what is google? ” .If you put the terms on the address bar of your browser and press the enter button the search engine will give you a list of answers based on SERPs. Here each answer has its own web address. Each answer has a complete address where the first part is generally the site address (like www.britanica.com) called the web address that is common name used by most people who are not well -skilled in technical terms and the latter part including the first one (www.britanica.com/topic/Google-Inc) is the URL. However, between the two terms there is no difference except in usage in sense. One can be used as an alternative to the other . The developers, webmasters, programmers and tech-savvy prefer URL to web address.
Where is located URL ?
So far you have learnt some basic concepts like :
- What is a URL in actual sense ?
- Is it a kind of address of anything on world wide web?
- Does it include mechanism of retrieving or merely a definition ?
- Is supported web address the same as URL ?
Every kind of search you make on search box follows a process of sending the request to the server and giving back a response against each query within a short span of time. The entire cycle includes a list of essential prerequisites like http command, server response, network, search engine crawling etc. Here against each term there may appear many answers having individual URL. You can see URL of an article on the address bar of the browser that is always visible unless you make your desktop or laptop in full screen mode.In case of smart phone, android you can see that from the browser’s address tab. Here you need to scroll the URL from right to left to fully watch that.
How to open a URL ?
To open a URL just type it on the address bar of you browser in windows /android and press down the ‘enter’. Instantly the linked article will be displayed on the screen with its address.
On the other hand, if you have copied link of the URL, then just paste the copied link on the address bar andpress down the search button. Forthwith you will see the desired text/s displayed on the screen.
Structure of user-friendly URL
You can see bellow that a URL consists of the following parts like: protocol, sub-domain, domain, TLD and path etc.
Protocol:The first part of the URL is called the protocol, a kind of mechanism to send and receive information over an active network. In other words, it’s a process of exchanging and transferring data through a live network. It may use various methods to transfer data such as FTP for file transfer, mailto for email exchange and HTTP or HTTPS to exchange information through an insecure or secure way. When you search a keyword or find something out through a browser on a search engine , every response(answer) from the website(server) starts either with HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol)or HTTPS(Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure). Through the former data transmission takes place in a way that is insecure and that’s why Google’s chrome flagged it as non-secure . On the other hand, through the latter information are allowed to exchange being encrypted where the padlock icon displayed as green implies security enabled in the protocol.
Sub-domain: Here sub-domain referrs to ‘www’. It may be any name you can use by making through your host’s DNS Zone Editor or from your Domain name registrar besides your main domain. In fact, here ‘www’ is the machine’s host name in the host computer that’s a part of the world wide web as webreference.
Domain :It is the second part of the URL, that’s to say, second level domain and a kind of identifier for a website. Generally, all the domain names in the webworld are different from each other. Never two domains can take the same name. It is preceded by ‘www’ and followed by TLD, a kind of suffix that comes next to it. Here ‘blowwager‘ is the domain name that is specified only for my site with the extension dot com(.com).
TLD:Top Level Domain(TLD) is the last segment of the domain name that’s placed next to the domain name. As for example, in my current web article .com points to TLD which is a kind of domain suffix. Every website must include a particular kind of top level domain name assigned and approved by the IANA out of several domain extensions such as .org, .net, .info, .co, .io, .com, .online, etc. Each kind of extension points to the kind of the website as to whether it is commercial, organizational, governmental or educational etc.
PORT:Port in TCP/UDP is a 16-bit integers used to identify a specific process to which a network message is assigned when reaches to a server. As far as URL is concerned, it passes logically from the client(end user) to the server transport layer. It thus serves as an entry point to communicate through a channel working as a conduit. There are many numbers used as port, starting from ‘0’ to’ 65535’by various entity when felt obliged. As for example, in the above URL if I use the http version it will look like this provided that I add the port: http://www.blowwager.com:80/what is a url ?
Here you can see that the port number has come after the TLD dot com(.com) and before it colon(:) has come. So, the port number for HTTP is ’80‘ and ‘443’ for HTTPS are set to default in server though not visible and added in URLs in most cases.
Hostname:The sub-domain(www), the second level domain (blowwager) and the tld(.com) altogether form the hostname . Here ‘www.blowwager.com’ is the hostname that is actually a site address to us and ip address in the internal server though the former text version used widely for better applicability, usage and user-experience instead of the numerical address.
Path:Path is the last part of a URL that points to a particular file, folder, directory or linked route including the post name within a server (website). Thus said, in order to reach, access or bring out a resource the linked path must be followed and traced.
Points to remember
Protocol and host component are not cas-sensitive.
If port number assigned ,it comes after the host name seperated by colon
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