Parsing the URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. A URL identifies a particular Internet resource: a Web page, a gopher server, a library catalog, an image, or a text file. It's the address of a resource and can tell you a lot about that resource.

The basic structure of a URL is hierarchical, and the hierarchy moves from left to right:

protocol://server-name.domain-name.top-level-domain:port/directory/filename

Examples:

So, for instance...

http://www.lawrence.edu/academics/it/url.html

tells us that...

the protocol used to access and transmit the resource is HTTP (i.e., it's a web page)
the resource is on the machine "www" in the second-level domain "lawrence", which is part of ".edu," or the top level domain for educational organizations (see below for more on domains);
the resource is in the directory "academics" in the subdirectory "it" and is an html file called "url.html"

Tricks to know

The server name(s) may give you a hint as to the origin of the page: http://www.student.carleton.edu or http://stu.beloit.edu

The domain name may be one you recognize: harvard.edu or not: savetz.com

The top-level domain is a good clue: .edu vs. .com vs. .org

The first directory after the top-level domain is sometimes helpful: http://www.colby.edu/personal/

The tilde (~) usually means that the page is a personal one: http://www.lawrence.edu/~gilbertp/

Cut back the URL to see from whence comes a particular page.

More on domains

The Internet is made up of many computer networks. These networks are classified into categories called domains. Domains are classified either by the type of organization that hosts the network or by geographical location.

The host-type domains are:

.com	Commercial
.edu	Educational
.gov	Governmental
.mil	Military
.net	Network
.org	Non-profit Organization

State domain codes are generally the two-letter state abbreviations. An example:

http://badger.state.wi.us/ Badger: State of Wisconsin Information Server

Country codes can be found here:

ISO (International Standards Organization) Country Codes