World
Wide Web Addresses (URLs)
A
common method of reaching a web page is to type in the web address
or URL into the Location Bar of a browser. World Wide Web addresses
are arranged in a similar fashion to all other types of Internet
address (eg. e-mail). They are also called URLs, or Universal
Resource Locators - a standard shorthand way of referring to the
location of hypertext documents.
Web
addresses normally have the letters 'http' before them, standing
for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. This tells the browser to look
for a web page. For example, the URL http://www.microsoft.com
will take you to the opening page of the Microsoft web site. Please
note though, that modern browsers don't require you to type in
http:// before the rest of the URL - if you type www.microsoft.com
into the Location Bar, your browser will happily assume you want
a web page and will automatically insert the 'http://'.
You
may be familiar with the suffix .com in a URL, but there
are others and they give an indication to the purpose of the site:
.ac
or .edu |
Academic
or educational institutions |
.com |
Commercial
site |
.co.uk |
UK
commercial site |
.gov |
Governmental
body |
.mil |
Military |
.net |
Networks |
.org |
Non-profit
organisations |
Contents:
World Wide Web
Skill
Check: World Wide Web
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