What is uniform resource locator (URL)

URL: –

The full name of the URL is a uniform resource locator and the URL is the web address of the webpage.

The URL is used by a web browser to access a website or web page on the Internet.

The URL was defined by Tim Berness-Lee in 1994 and URLs are case-sensitive, meaning we have to take care of the lower case and upper case.

All the pages on the website have a unique URL.

Such as – http://techeasyinfo.com is a URL.

Where;

1-http: -HTTP is a protocol we call hypertext transfer protocol. It is used for communication between server and browser.

2-WWW: – This is the name of the server.

3-techeasyinfo.com:- This is the name of the domain

Any URL has three parts.

Protocol Designation

Host Name or Address

File or Resource Location

Special characters are used to separate all these substrings. Whose Format is something like this?

protocol: // host / location

URL Protocol Substrings

Such protocols define the network protocol so that a network resource can be easily accessed. These strings are often short names followed by three special characters “: //” This is a typical name conversion that denotes the Protocol definition. Typical protocols that are used are such as HTTP (http: //), FTP (ftp: //) etc.

URL Host Substrings

With the help of Host Substring, a destination computer or network device can be identified. Hosts come from the standard Internet Database such as DNS and which we also know by the name of IP addresses. The hostname of many websites does not represent just a single computer but it is a group of WebServers.

URL Location Substrings

Location Substring refers to the path of any particular network that exists in that host. Resouces mainly reside in a host directory or folder.

History of the URL

The first thing about Uniform Resource Locators was brought to the world by Tim Berners-Lee. Who first brought this idea to everyone, an organization that provides the unique locational address to all web pages. So that they can be easily searched online. After creating HTML, many pages were created in the World Wide Web using standard language and hyperlinks with it. After that, both of them were combined. Due to which the internet got bigger and bigger day by day.

How does the URL work?

The URL has been designed in such a way that it is easy for people to remember it. But the computer needs the information to identify the right website so that it can easily find the right website. Our Browser uses the IP of a webpage to find it. IP, which we also know as Internet Protocol. These are a series of IP numbers that look something like 69.172.244.11

Different Kinds of URLs

By the way, there are many types of URLs and many different terms are used for them. I have told about some types here.

Messy:

These are the types of URLs that contain a lot of numbers and letters that make some sense of organization. For example ‘http://www.example.com/woeiruwoei909305820580’. These URLs are usually generated by computers that create thousands of web pages for a similar domain name.

Dynamic:

These URLs have also originated from the same place where the Messy URLs came from. These URLs are the end result of a database query that provides the content output in the result of any query. Do these also look like Messy URLs with characters like? &,%, +, =, $. These are used mainly on the website used by the consumer such as shopping, traveling websites in which the user keeps changing their queries frequently so that the answers also change.

Static:

They are completely opposite to any Dynamic URL. This URL is completely hard-wired with Webpage’s HTML coding. This URL never changes, no matter what the user requests.

Obfuscated:

This is a very dangerous URL that is used in Phishing scams. As its name suggests, they are hidden. Which is used very cleverly so that it looks completely original? So when a user clicks it, he redirects them to the Malicious Website.

Why characters are not used in the URL

We all must know that space is not used in the URL. But we should also know that according to RFC 1738, only alphanumeric characters and other characters like!, $, -, _, *, ‘, () are used in the string of the URL. And if any other characters are used then they have to be encoded.

Absolute versus Relative URLs

Absolute URLs are those in which all the substring mentioned are used. But in some cases only some or one location element is used, such URL is called Relative URL. Relative URLs are used in Web Servers and Web Pages as a shortcut so that the length of URL Strings can be reduced.

For example, the link of the same website has been written in the format of the Relative URL and Absolute URL.

Relative URL

<a href=”/2016/September/word-of-the-day-04.htm”>

equivalent Absolute URL

<a href=”http://thebestsiteever.com/2016/September/word-of-the-day-04.htm”>

The best thing that happens in this is that all the missing protocols and Host Information are filled automatically with the help of Web Server. But keep in mind that relative URLs can be used only in those places where Host and Protocol Information can be established beforehand.

What is URL Shortening?

If we talk about a Modern Website in Standard URL then we will know that these are very long strings. And sharing such a long string of URLs is a difficult task. Because of which many companies have created many online translators with the help of which a full (absolute) URL can be shortened and can be used wherever it is. There are some popular url shorteners like t.co (for Twitter) and lnkd.in (for LinkedIn).

In addition, there are many URL Shortening Services like bit.ly and goo.gl with the help of which people all over the world are shortening their URLs for free. Along with this, many URL Shortening Services click statistics are also offered. Apart from this, some other malicious URLs are also checked in suspicious Internet domain and inform the user.

What are Secure URLs

Secure URLs are websites that start with https: // The URL of such a website is called Secure Url. This means that even if you enter your personal information on such a website, it gets encrypted even before it is transmitted and it is not so easy to read any hacker’s favor. If you want to know in detail then what is SSL, definitely read.

For the same reason, if a website asks you about your personal things such as your banking details etc. then, first of all, do not forget to check whether the Secure URL is there first. And such a website should use some security protocol in its URL so that consumer information is not used incorrectly. I advise you to take special care of all these things before giving any personal information