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What's a URL?
URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is simply an Internet address. Being familiar with the parts of a URL can often help you connect to online resources directly, without
having to search. Notice that if you move the cursor
over an item, before you click on it, its URL address appears on the status
line at the bottom of the web page.
Each Internet computer has a geographical
location (where it physically resides) and a network location (its
position on the Internet in relation to other computers). Most of the time,
you won't need to know this level of detail, but occasionally it can save
you time and effort.

- Computer names
The computer name begins after the
double-slash, and continues to the next slash or the end of the URL, whichever
comes first:
- http://www.yahoo.com
- http://www.yahoo.com/index.html
In both the above URLs, the computer
name is www.yahoo.com
- Internet domains
- .edu - Educational institution
- .org - Non-Commercial (not for profit)
organization
- .com - Commercial (for profit)
organization
- .gov - Government organization
(non-military)
- .mil - Military organization
In any computer name, each word
represents a subdomain, and each suffix represents a domain. Computer names
are best understood from right to left. For example:
- http://www.ncsu.edu ---
This URL
indicates the site is located at the educational institution, North Carolina
State University, on the World Wide Web.
- chccs.k12.nc.us---
This server name indicates the email server is in the United States, in North Carolina, at a K-12 institution in Chapel Hill.
- Educated guesses
URLs can be guessed from domain
names and suffixes:
- http:// is a typical web page.
- gopher:// indicates a gopher menu.
- ftp:// is an FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) site, with files for downloading.
- news: (followed by an area of interest,
such as rec. for recreation; alt. for alternative....Because Usenet has
no central location, newsgroup URLs don't contain a computer name, just
the name of the newsgroup.)
- mailto: an opportunity to send
mail.
- telnet:// indicates a login connection
to another machine.
- file:// is a file on your computer.
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