What is a URL?
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a unique identifier used
to locate a resource on the Internet. It is also referred to as a
web address
URLs consist of multiple parts -- that tell a web
browser how and where to retrieve a resource.
How is a URL structured?
The URL contains the name of the protocol needed to access a
resource, as well as a resource name. The first part of a URL
identifies what protocol to use as the primary access medium.
The second part identifies the IP address or domain name -- and
possibly subdomain -- where the resource is located.
Parts of url
Parts of a URL
• The protocol or scheme. Used to access a resource
on the internet. Protocols include http, https, ftps,
mailto and file. The resource is reached through the
domain name system (DNS) name. In this example,
the protocol is https.
• Host name or domain name. The unique reference
the represents a webpage. For this example,
whatis.get.com.
• Port name. Usually not visible in URLs, but necessary. Always following a
colon, port 80 is the default port for web servers, but there are other
options. For example, :port80.
• Path. A path refers to a file or location on the web server. For this example,
search/query.
• Query. Found in the URL of dynamic pages. The query consists of a question
mark, followed by parameters. For this example, ?.
• Parameters. Pieces of information in a query string of a URL. Multiple
parameters can be separated by ampersands (&). For this example, q=URL.
• Fragment. This is an internal page reference, which refers to a section within
the webpage. It appears at the end of a URL and begins with a hashtag (#).
Although not in the example above, an example could be #history in the URL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#History.