Saturday, September 18, 2010

Browsing the Internet I: The URL

Ever wondered how your computer knows how to pull up the page you type into the address bar or when you click a link?  This is the job of either an IP address, a domain name, or a URL.  An IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a number that uniquely identifies each computer or device connected to the internet.  A domain name is a text alias for a single IP address or multiple addresses.  The most commonly used method of finding a specific website is typing in the URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, which is a collection of characters that identifies a unique webpage. 




 

The first part of the URL is the protocol or set of rules used to transmit a web page from a server to a browser (http://).  The second part is the name of the server hosting the web page, usually containing a server's domain name.  Domain names are divided into top-level domains (TLDs) which identifies the type of company the website is associated with.  TLDs are at the end of the domain name in a URL.

 
More information on URLs:  http://websearch.about.com/od/dailywebsearchtips/qt/dnt0526.htm

1 comment:

  1. Interesting information, I always was wondering how computer knows how to pull up the page I type into the address bar or when I click a link. Actually this happens when URL has proper and user friendly name, read more about what is URL - sitechecker.pro/what-is-url/ and more.

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