URLs (Web Addresses)

What is a URL?

URL stands for Universal Resource Locator. A URL is the equivalent of a Web address; it tells you "where" a Web page is located, just as a street address in the real world tells you where a house or business is located. Every page on the Web has a unique URL, so the URL is all you need to find any page. Type the URL into your Web browser's Location or Address blank (depending on which browser you use), hit the Return or Enter key on your keyboard, and your browser will find that page for you. (You can also get to a page without knowing its URL by clicking to it from a link on another page.) With a little experience, you can learn to read URLs just as easily as you read street addresses.

Why do most Web site addresses end in .com but others end in .net, .org, or .edu?

The final part of the hostname tells you what kind of host the page is on and where the server is located. In the case of Konocti Net's homepage, .net stands for "network." This indicates that www.konocti.net is owned by an Internet Service Provider, or network. Other common suffixes include:

.com: commercial businesses (www.laketelcom.com)

.edu: educational institutions, like colleges and schools (www.stanford.edu)

.gov: governmental agencies and bureaus (www.treas.gov)

.mil: military agencies (www.defenselink.mil)

.org: nonprofit organizations and personal pages (www.pasco-online.org)

Why do I see some URLs written starting with http:// and others with www?

Most Web addresses begin with http://. This stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, the standard method of sending information on the Web. Anytime you see http://, you can be sure the address points to a Web page. (You may occasionally see addresses that begin with ftp://. These are FTP or File Transfer Protocol sites.) Since almost every URL begins with http://, they are often listed without the http://. If you enter a URL without the http:// into the Address/Location blank, your browser will "assume" that you have typed a URL and add the http:// automatically.

Does it matter if URLs are in capital or lowercase letters?

The main part of the URL, the hostname, can be written in either lowercase or capital letters. So, you could write either www.konocti.net or WWW.KONOCTI.NET. But individual directory or file names (essentially anything that comes after the .com or .net) ARE case-sensitive. You can't, for instance, get to www.konocti.net/downloads/ if you type www.konocti.net/Downloads/ or www.konocti.net/DownLoads/. For this reason, you will most often encounter lowercase URLs. If you do see file names written in some combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, be sure you've typed them into your browser exactly as they appear.

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