URL Full Form

In today’s time, the Internet has become a major need for all of us. You can’t expect everyday life for one who uses the internet daily. Indeed, appropriate use of the internet has made life easy for all of us. The Internet has developed and helped us in certain aspects of locating figures and facts, social development and economic development. You just have to type and there you get your desired results in front of you. Apart from that, you might have noticed that when you type your requirement, you get something like a web address on your search page. So, what is it? It is a URL that provides and directs you to the address of the requirement you need. 

What is a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)? 

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a distinct address used as a reference to locate a particular resource on the web and how one uses this to retrieve information about the topic we need. Not only for locating, but URL also has certain other applications as well, which includes file transfer (FTP), locating web pages (HTTP), accessing the database (JDBC) and email (mailto). You can easily find a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) at the top of the search page in the address bar. Every part of the structure of a URL assists the webpage in locating the desired information that is needed. 

Structure of a URL 

A Uniform Resource Locator has many parts which individually help in procuring the required information. This includes the protocol, domain name, port name, parameters, fragment, path and query. An explanation to each one of them is mentioned below: 

Protocol

If we talk about the protocol, it is used to gain access to a resource on the internet. It includes mailto, file, ftps, HTTP and HTTPS. This can be the same for more than one web address. 

Domain Name

The unique part of the URL that is different for the different materials we want to have access to is referred to as the Domain Name. 

Port Name

You won’t find this in a URL, but it is one of the necessary things to locate and retrieve your information. The default port name for web servers is port80. 

Path 

Path refers to the file or location where you will be getting the desired results. 

Query

You will find this in the URL of the dynamic web pages. The query includes question marks, heeded by the parameters that give chunks of data to the users in the form of a query string. 

Parameters

After the query, parameters provide the users with the pieces of data in the form of a query string. URLs can show different parameters at the same time just by separating them with ‘&’. 

Fragment

This is considered as inclusion or a section within the URL of a webpage. You don’t find this in all the URLs you see but it appears at the end of the Uniform Resource Locator with a ‘#’. 

Where can you find a URL? 

You can find a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) at the top of the web browser you are using on your device. If you are operating on a computer or a laptop, you will be able to see the URL only if the page is on full screen. Oppositely, you won’t be able to see it. For the case, if you are using a mobile phone, you can find that on the top of the web browser but it disappears as soon as you start scrolling down the webpage, but shows only the domain.

How to open a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)? 

To open a URL, one can do it just by clicking on the hyperlink that directs you to a page. Just if the URL you are opening is printed material, one has to type the URL at the end and there is how you open a Uniform Resource Locator. In the other cases, if it is an email-type URL, you can copy and paste it on the address bar of your web browser. 

How can we create our own Uniform Resource Locator? 

To create our URL, one needs to get his/her custom domain documented at the domain name registrar. These companies enable you to pay for the domain names you want, which can thus be used for your webpage and now you can redirect any link towards your URL address. Easy, isn’t it? 

Interestingly, one needs to get their Uniform Resource Locator (URL) renewed on an annual basis where the prices are charged from the owner based on the historical use and the marketability of the website you own. You can even transfer domain names between the registrars and link that to the web addresses of other websites. 

Things that should be kept in mind for the URL 

Certain things should also be kept in mind while you see or type a URL. A Uniform Resource Locator shouldn’t have any space between the various parts of the web address. Next is the fact that the URL string which you type should only contain alphanumeric characters and signs like &$!-(). No other characters should be used in a URL. 

Conclusion 

You can easily get your domain name from domain name companies like GoDaddy,  CloudFare, Google Domains, Namecheap, Weebly, and Squarespace. One can always understand a URL for a website like the address to your home. You can’t be able to locate your house without the address. Furthermore, one shouldn’t confuse this with an IP address where that is a distinct number selected for each device and URL is a distinct address to the webpages. It should also be noted that URLs can only be sent using the ASCII character set, but they are in the form of non-ASCII, so they have to be initially converted into ASCII character sets to be sent over the net.