URL (CIE IGCSE Computer Science)

What is a URL?

• The URL is a text-based address that identifies the location of a resource on the internet
• It is the address of a web page, image, video, or any other resource available on the internet

Components of a URL

• A URL can contain three main components:
  • Protocol
  • Domain name
  • Web page / file name
• The protocol is the communication protocol used to transfer data between the client and the server 
  • E.g. HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and others
• The domain name is the name of the server where the resource is located
  • It can be a name or an IP address
• The web page / file name is the location of the file or resource on the server
  • It can contain the name of the file or directory where the resource is located
• A URL looks like this: 
  • protocol://domain/path
  • E.g. https://www.example.com/index.html is a URL that consists of the HTTPS protocol, the domain name "www.example.com", and the file name is "/index.html".