ComputerGrade5: The Anatomy of Internet URL's

How a Web Address is Broken Down
Here are some simplified rules to start your URL habits right:
a. A URL is synonymous with "Internet address". Feel free to interchange those words in conversation, although URL makes you sound more high-tech!
b. A URL never has any spaces in it.
c. A URL, for the most part, is all lower case.
d. A URL is NOT the same as an email address.
e. A URL always starts with a protocol prefix like "http://", but most browsers will type those characters for you.
f. A URL uses forward slashes (/) and dots to separate its parts.
g. A URL is usually in some kind of English, but numbers are also allowed

Anatomy of a URL

Here's how to interpret the various parts of a URL:

http:// www. learnthenet.com /english/ start.htm

http:// -- Short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, this indicates a Web document or directory.

www. -- This indicates a page on the World Wide Web. (These days, the "www" is optional.)

learnthenet.com/ -- Called the domain name, it often indicates the name of a company, university, or organization. It can also tell you the country of origin.

www.learnthenet.com/ -- Together, these indicate the web server name.

english/ -- This is directory or folder on the web server that contains a group of related web pages within the website.

start.htm -- This is a web page inside the folder. (The same file can be named start.html) A URL doesn't always include the name of the web page.

Here’s a list of some common top-level domain names. Note that some sites don’t follow these conventions:

`.edu`	educational site (usually a university or college)
`.com`	commercial business site
`.gov`	U.S. government/non-military site
`.mil`	U.S. military sites or agencies
`.net`	networks, Internet service providers, organizations
`.org`	non-profit organizations and others

Other countries have their own two letter codes as the top level of their domain names — although many non-US sites use other top-level domains (such as .com):