CMSY129 Principles of the Internet
What are URLs?
Every web site on the Internet has a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). They usually look something like this:
type://hostname.domain.group
The Type is usually http:// which stands for HyperText Transport Protocol. Other types include ftp:// and gopher://.
The hostname is usually www.
The domain is the institution, government agency, or company name.
Some of the types of groups include:
COUNTRY CODES au Australia at Austria be Belgium ca Canada ch Switzerland com Commercial Sites cz Czech Republic dk Denmark fi Finland fr France de Germany in India ie Ireland il Israel it Italy jp Japan nl The Netherlands no Norway nz New Zealand ru The Russian Federation es Spain se Sweden ch Switzerland tw Taiwan uki The United Kingdom us The United States TOP LEVEL DOMAINS edu Educational Institutions gov Government Agencies int International Organizations mil Military net Networking Organizations org Nonprofit Organizations Take a look at this URL:
- It's a hypertext transport protocol type
- Its hostname is www
- Its domain name is Greenpeace
- It's a nonprofit organization
Most URLs have the "www" in them, but if they don't - don't worry about it. The important part of the URL is the domain name that follows it - that is what everyone will remember. If someone tells you their web address is company-dot-com it will almost certainly be:
http://www.company.com
You can oftentimes find companies just by trying out their name and following it with .com:
– and so forth. Try a few yourself by typing in http://www/. and a well-known company name with .com after it, in the Location line and hitting Enter to select it.
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