URL: Did You Know It Stands For Uniform Resource Locator? A Guide With Examples

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Last Updated on November 1, 2019

The following URLs have several different elements you might encounter in web addresses — protocols, domains, subdomains, TLDS, paths, and named anchors.

Most of the time, you don’t need to know about all these different parts of a web address — you just click on a link or type in an address and everything is fine. But — like knowing which part of a phone number is the “area code” — it helps to understand what all these different components are.

Example 1: https://websitebuilders.com

This is the URL for the home page of this web site. Let’s take a look at the different parts of the URL:

• The protocol is http.
• The TLD, or Top Level Domain, is .com, indicating that it is probably a commercial site.
• The domain name is learnthenet.com, which gives you some sense of what the site is all about (learning about the internet).
• The subdomain is www, which stands for World Wide Web. Newer sites don’t usually use this, but many sites that have been around for a long time still do. It indicates that the content at this address is for public viewing.
• There is not a slash ( / ) and additional text after the domain name, so this is the home, or index, page for this domain.

Example 2: https://www.facebook.com/Learn-the-Net-330002341216/

This is the the URL for Learn the Net’s Facebook page (which you should definitely visit and “Like”).

• The protocol is https. Facebook uses HTTPS (the secure version of HTTP) because you have to be logged-in to use it, and because they store and use a lot of your personal data and information.
• The TLD is .com, indicating that Facebook is probably a commercial site (it is).
• The domain name is facebook.com.
• They are using the www subdomain. Probably for usability reasons (some people still expect all domains names to begin with www, even though it isn’t necessary).
• The path is Learn-the-Net-330002341216, which identifies a specific resource (our page) on their server.

Example 3: ftp://aeneas.mit.edu/

This URL is for an FTP server at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

• The protocol is ftp, or File Transfer Protocol. This is not used for interacting with a document in a browser, but rather for uploading and downloading files.
• The TLD is .edu, indicating that the site is run by a college or university.
• The domain name is mit.edu, indicating it is owned or controlled by MIT. There is a connection between this domain and the contents at mit.edu.
• The subdomain is aeneas.
• The hostname is aeneas.mit.edu
• There is no path, so this is the index for the file system.

Example 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#Terminology

This URL is for the section titled “Terminology,” in the “Internet” article on Wikipedia.

• The protocol is https.
• The TLD is .org, indicating that the domain is probably run by a non-profit organization. (That is not always true, but in this case it is.)
• The domain name is wikipedia.org.
• The subdomain is en. Wikipedia uses language-code subdomains. This URL is for an English-language article.
• The path is /wiki/Internet. This identifies the specific resource (the wiki article on the Internet) on Wikipedia’s server.
• This URL has a named anchor, #Terminology. This indicates that the URL is not just for a specific document, but for a specific place within that document. IF you followed this link, the page would be scrolled down to the “Terminology” section, rather than the top of the page.