A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a unique identifier used to locate a resource on the Internet. It is also referred to as a web address. URLs consist of multiple parts -- including a protocol and domain name -- that tell a web browser how and where to retrieve a resource.
Below are the importance of the URL Design:
URL can only sent over the internet using ASCII character-set.
Due to Non-ASCII character, the URL must be converted into valid ASCII format.
URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with a "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits. URLs cannot contain spaces.
URL Structure
URL contains name of the protocol which is used to access the resource and resource name.
a. The First part of URL identifies what protocol to use as primary access medium
b. The Second part identifies the IP Address or domain name and sub-domain which is used to
locate the resource.
URL Protocol include HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) for web resources, mail for email addresses, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for files on server, and telnet for session to access remote computers.
After the domain name , URL specify:
path to specific page or file within domain
network port to use to make connection
specific reference point within file such as name anchor in HTML File
query or search parameters used
See the below image to see the structure of the URL.
Using the URL https://www.thetechplatform.com/post/post-name as an example, components of a URL can include:
The protocol
Used to access a resource on the internet. Protocols include http, https, ftps, mailto and file. The resource is reached through the domain name system (DNS) name. In this example, the protocol is https.
Host name or domain name.
The unique reference the represents a webpage. For this example, thetechplatform.com
Subdomain:
A subdomain is an additional part to your main domain name. Subdomains are created to organize and navigate to different sections of your website. You can create multiple subdomains or child domains on your main domain.
Root Domain:
The root domain (example.com) is the overarching structure that contains the subdomains (blog.example.com), and every folder (/SEO/article) that belongs to a website.
TLD (Top-Level Domain) :
The last segment of domain name or the part that follows immediately after "dot" symbol. (.com).
Slug:
Part of URL which identifies a particular page in Website in an easy way to read the form. In simple word, it explains page's content.
Port name.
Usually not visible in URLs, but necessary. Always following a colon, port 80 is the default port for web servers, but there are other options. For example, :port80.
Path.
A path refers to a file or location on the web server. For this example, search/query.
Query.
Found in the URL of dynamic pages. The query consists of a question mark, followed by parameters. For this example, ?.
Parameters.
Pieces of information in a query string of a URL. Multiple parameters can be separated by ampersands (&). For this example, q=URL.
Fragment.
This is an internal page reference, which refers to a section within the webpage. It appears at the end of a URL and begins with a hashtag (#). Although not in the example above, an example could be #history in the URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#History.
Sofia Sondh
The Tech Platform