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URL Names and Structure

By looking at the URL, you can tell whether the site is an educational institution, commercial site or government agency, by noting the domain.

Suppose you want to look up some information about vitamins.

Click on the site you think would be more reliable.

www.nih.gov

OR

www.vitamins.com

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A typical URL looks like this:

http://www.library.ncat.edu/eresources/ATfulltext.html

Let's break this URL into more specific parts.

protocol method	host name	host domain	directory name	file name & file format
http://	library.ncat	edu	eresources/	ATfulltext.html

So what do we know about this site? It is on the Web, the host is an educational institution with a directory entitled "webclass", and it is a file written in hypertext markup language.

Here are some helpful hints regarding URLs:

• The . (period) in a URL is pronounced "dot."
  
• URLs have no spaces.
  
• URLs use forward slashes //.
  
• URLs are case-sensitive (Use upper and lower cases) and must be entered EXACTLY.
  
• The ~ symbol, located in the upper lefthand corner of your keyboard, is called a tilde. It often, but not always, refers to a personal home page.
  
• If you are having problems getting to the site you want, check to make sure the URL is entered EXACTLY with the correct punctuation, spelling and capitalization.

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