What is a URL?

Uniform Resource Locator or URL is the global address of resources on the World Wide Web. The resources include web pages, documents and other files.For example, you need typing www.nameofwebsite/webpage/document.com to visit a site.

In Google Search, you see URLs of sites matching with your search words and/or intent. The titles you see in search results are hyperlinks to the URLs of the websites. You click on one of the URLs and the resource locator takes you to that site.

Parts of a URL

A Uniform Resource Locator consists of two parts:

Protocol Identifier: It is the first part of the URL. It indicates what protocol to use. The first part is separated from the second part with a colon and two forward slashes.

Resource Name: It is the second part. It starts from the forward slashes and ends with a forward slash. It identifies the IP address where the resource is located. It is also called domain name as it specifies names of web pages.

Web address is a URL

The web address is used as a synonym for a Uniform Resource Locator. It is so because a URL sends visitors to a specific web page. It can be said that a URL is more technical in nature but web address looks user-friendly. A Uniform Resource Locator is used either HTTP or HTTP protocol. The latest trend is to use HTTPS that is a fully secure URL.

“A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is also called Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)”