What's a URL?

The term "URL" stands for Uniform Resources Locator. In general, a URL is nothing more than but an address of a particular resource available on the web ( or Internet). Therefore every correct (or valid) Uniform Resource Locator (or URL) points or refers to a particular resource available on the Internet. These resources are usually the web-pages such as HTML pages, documents, images, etc. Although some exceptions always exist, one of the most common being a URL that points to (or refers to) a particular resource that is no longer available (or has been moved to a new address).

However, the Web servers handle both the URL and the address of the resource represented by the URL. Therefore, it is up to the owner (or one how has the responsibility) of the webserver to carefully manage that resource and its associated URL. Now let us see some examples which will help us to know how a URL (or Uniform Resource Locator) actually looks like:

Examples of Standard URL

https://www.javatpoint.com/

https://www.javatpoint.com/python-tutorial

These are some examples of standard URLs. Any of the given URLs can also be directly typed into the web browser's search box to tell it to load that specific web page.

Structure of the URL

To understand the structure of a URL more precisely, let's take a look at all its essential parts:

https://javatpoint.com/javascript-example

This part of the URL usually provides information about the mentioned protocol used to access the web pages. Nowadays, HTTP is one of the most used commonly used protocols. The HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. The HTTP usually tells your browser to encrypt the information you entered on a web page, such as passwords and credit card information, to ensure that the cybercriminal can not access that data. The primary purpose of using this protocol is to protect the visitors on the website. In addition, implementing this protocol can also help your website to get a better rank on Google. There are also many other protocols that exists, such as the mailto://, that can open your computer's default email service provider to help you draft the email you mentioned in the URL. FTP is another one of the most commonly used protocols. This protocol is generally used while transferring the data or information between the clients and server over a computer network.

Domain name

https://javatpoint.com/javascript-example

The domain name is usually a human-readable name of a particular location where the specific resources are located. In most cases, these resources are the website itself.

TLD

https://javatpoint.com/javascript-example

The TLD stands for the Top Level Domain. It is used to categorize the websites according to their content and other essential factors such as private, government, educational, etc. One of the most common is the ".com" to which almost everyone is familiar. However, there are other TLD that exist too. For example, the ".edu" is for educational websites, ".gov" is used for the sites that are run and owned by the government, etc.

SUB directory

https://javatpoint.com/javascript-example

A URL also contains several other things, such as the folders, subfolders, and even sub-directories present on a given website. Any parameters stored in the URL allow the users to jump on a specific URL point in the resource. In addition, a subdirectory also helps the users to know on which specific section of the web page they are.

To understand the URL more precisely, you can consider the given example:

Example

One can think of a URL like a Regular postal mail address. The scheme denotes the postal service you want to use. The domain name can be considered as the name of the city or town. The port like the zip-code. However, the path represents the house or building where the mail needs to be delivered. The parameters represent the extra information such as block no. Apartment number. Finally, the anchor refers to the actual person to whom the mail is sent.