Understanding

Internet Addresses

You can think of the World Wide Web as a network of electronic files stored on computers all around the world. HyperText links these resources together. Uniform Resource Locators or URL's are the addresses used to locate these files. The information contained in a URL gives you the ability to jump from one location on the Web to another with just a click of your mouse. Most web browsers allow you to type in a URL to access a particular document or service. When you click on a hypertext link in an HTML document, your web browser is actually sending a request to download a file stored on a remote computer.

What does a typical URL look like? Here are some examples:

http://www.phoenix.k12.ny.us
The home page for Phoenix Central Schools
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/
A directory of files at MIT available for downloading
news:rec.gardens.roses
A newsgroup on rose gardening.

The first part of a URL (before the two slashes) tells you the type of resource or method of access at that address. For example:

  • http - a hypertext document or directory
  • gopher - a gopher document or menu
  • ftp - a file available for downloading or a directory of such files
  • news - a newsgroup
  • telnet - a computer system that you can log into over the Internet
  • WAIS - a database or document in a Wide Area Information Search database
  • file - a file located on a local drive (your hard drive)

The second part of a URL is typically the address of the computer where the data or service is located. Additional parts may specify the names of files, the port to connect to, or the text to search for in a database.

You can enter the URL of a site by typing it into the Location window of your web browser, just under the toolbar. Most browsers can record URL's that you want to use again, by adding them to a special menu. In Microsoft Explorer, it's called Favorites. Once you add a URL to your list, you can return to that web page simply by clicking on the link in your list, instead of retyping the entire URL.

Most of the URL's you'll be using start with HTTP which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. http is the method by which HTML files are transferred over the Web. Here are some other important things to know about URL's:

  1. A URL usually has no spaces.
  2. A URL always uses forward (/) slashes.
  3. If you enter a URL incorrectly, your browser will not be able to locate the site or resource you want.
  4. You can find the URL behind any link by passing your mouse cursor over the link. The pointer will turn into a hand and the URL will appear in the browser's status bar, usually located at the bottom of your screen.


Or use your browser's back ieback.gif (1129 bytes) button to return previous page