Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

What Is Uniform Resource Locator?

“Uniform Resource Locator”, is a string of characters used to represent and identify a page of information on the World Wide Web that is used by an web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer to find HTTP, FTP, telnet, gopher and other resources on the Internet. The URL is the address of a resource, or file, available on the Internet. The URL contains the protocol of the resource (e.g. http:// or ftp://), the domain name for the resource, and the hierarchical name for the file (address). The beginning part, http:// provides the protocol, the next part www.learnthat.com is the domain, the main domain is learnthat.com, while www is a pointer to a computer or a resource. In popular language, a URL is also referred to as a Web address. Every URL begins with the scheme name that defines its namespace, purpose, and the syntax of the remaining part of the URL. Most Web-enabled programs will try to dereference a URL according to the semantics of its scheme and a context.

Example of URL:

• http://example.org/
• bob@example.com
• http://en.wikipedia
• http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html
• ftp://www.pcwebopedia.com/stuff.exe

Sources:

1. http://www.birds-eye.net/definition/u/url-uniform_resource_locator.shtml
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL
3. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/URL.html