A URL is another word for a web address.
Most people enter the name when surfing, because names are easier to remember than numbers.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
Web browsers request pages from web servers by using a URL.
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is used to address a document (or other data) on the web.
A web address like follows these syntax rules:
scheme://prefix.domain:port/path/filenameExplanation
- scheme - defines the type of Internet service (most common is http or https )
- prefix - defines a domain prefix (default for http is www )
- port - defines the port number at the host (default for http is 80 )
- path - defines a path at the server (If omitted: the root directory of the site)
- filename - defines the name of a document or resource
Common URL Schemes
The table below lists some common schemes:
| Scheme | Short for | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| http | HyperText Transfer Protocol | Common web pages. Not encrypted |
| https | Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol | Secure web pages. Encrypted |
| ftp | File Transfer Protocol | Downloading or uploading files |
| file | A file on your computer |
URL Encoding
URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set . If a URL contains characters outside the ASCII set, the URL has to be converted.
URL encoding converts non-ASCII characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet.
URL encoding replaces non-ASCII characters with a "%" followed by hexadecimal digits.
URLs cannot contain spaces. URL encoding normally replaces a space with a plus (+) sign, or %20.
If you click "Submit", the browser will URL encode the input before it is sent to the server.
A page at the server will display the received input.
Try some other input and click Submit again.