From time to time you have probably heard or read a mention of a URL. I usually get a “what’s that” in response to using the word. You could say it is really another word for web address but what does it really mean? URL (Pronounced U-R-L) stands for Uniform Resource Locator (so thank goodness we use the short form and don’t have to say that all the time). It tells browsers where to find certain resources on the Internet and what type of resource it is. To be more detailed, it tells you the protocol used to access the file (protocol again? yup, another set of rules the for your web browser), the domain name of of the server where the file is located and the file name of a file you are accessing on the web.
The protocol is the first part of the address, most often Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP. So, for instance, the URL of the banner picture on this website is http://techreluctant.com/wp-content/themes/grayband/images/header.gif. This tells your browser a bunch of stuff. The http part tells it that you are looking for file on a web page, and which set of rules used to get that file; the techreluctant.com tells you the domain name, or the address of the server that file is on. The “/wp-content/themes/grayband/images/” is the file path and show all the subdirectories (or subfolders) on that server, and the “header.gif” is the name of the image file you are looking for. It’s like if I told you to look for a picture file on your computer and then told you to look for it in your Documents folder and in a subfolder called Pictures. The URL tells your browser all that information and also tells it which set of rules to use in order to do it.
And that’s the URL. Now you know why you usually just call it a web address.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
[...] one is new to me. Instead of typing the whole web address (or, as you know, the URL), you can just type the part that usually goes between www and .com then press Ctrl+Enter. www will [...]