| What is an URL ? |
What is an URL ?An URL is a website address, either a domain name or a page, typically. URL stands for uniform resource locator, and is a type of URI or uniform resource identifier - but that is not relevant for our purposes.The term 'URL' is used frequently because it is a good short form of any of the possible alternatives, such as web address, website address, web page address, website frontpage and so on. URL exampleAn URL is commonly of the form:lp-web-development.com www.lp-web-development.com www.lp-web-development.com/website-tutorials.html ...and so on. Any web resource (such as a download file or an image) has an URL. What is a web address ?Any web address is an URL - see above examples.How to pronounce 'URL' ?You can say it as either 'earl' or 'you-are-ell' - it really doesn't matter. Informal use is the first version, ie earl. In some academic circles - or countries, depending on language - they might say you-are-ell in order to be precise. Most people don't bother with this as it would be simpler to say 'address' in that case. What is an image URL ?An image URL is just the address of a photo or graphic. Every web resource has an URL, so an image on a web page (any image, any web page) has an URL. You can go directly to that image if you know the URL.What is an HTML URL ?This is not common usage but it would refer to any URL written correctly, since the way it is written conforms to HTML rules. So:http://www.lp-web-development.com/what-is-a-domain.html ...is an HTML URL if you like. What is a good URL ?What is a bad URL ?Web page addresses can be written (coded) in numerous ways. Depending on what you wish to achieve, you could assign a rating on a 'good' to 'bad' scale. There are no purely good or bad URLs or features of URLs, it would depend on the ultimate aim. For example if you wish people to be able to remember a web address easily, and to type it without fault, then logically it would need to be as short and simple as possible - perhaps like: example.com/1.html If you would like it to be memorable, and easy to type, you could have: example.com/123.html If you want it to have some relevance to the actual page content, for best human-related use and search friendliness, then you could have something like: example.com/free-beer.html All these are preferable for most purposes to the machine-created, machine readable version that the server application creates for the resource in the first place, which might be 100 characters long, indecipherable, and longer than the address bar. Therefore we tend to rewrite such URLs and produce a more easily-handled version. This is 'good' as far as humans and search engines are concerned. What are raw URLs ?Raw URLS are the long, unrewritten page addresses that database-driven websites produce. They are ugly and difficult to use. They are notably less successful in search. These crude addresses should be converted to human and search-friendly form. Their use is considered a fault condition by those who seek to perfect a website's operation.What are SIDs ?What are Session IDs ?What are SID URLs ? SID URLs are addresses with a session ID appended, and are considered the worst URLs of all for any practical purpose. A SID URL is one with a long string of letters and numbers after the page address. These characters change for each and every person or visit to the page, in order to identify that visitor and session. This method was used in the 90s as that was the level of technology and understanding available then. Unfortunately it means that the page address is always changing and has an infinite number of variations. This is not a Good Thing. Search engine spiders, humans, and everything between universally dislike these URLs. It is always found that web applications that generate these session URLs have more intrinsic faults than others. There is no reason for their use (except bad coding) and no modern website software uses them, since there are many alternative methods to identify visitors. What is HTML ?HTML is just the code that web pages are written in. It is a very simple text-based code that browsers can easily understand and convert to a visual result for you to read. Code can be text-based (visible on a page and easily edited), or compiled (transformed into a fast, machine readable-only state), and HTML is of the text-based type. HTML code contains the text information that eventually prints** on the page, plus information on how to display that text. The modern method is to have most of the pure display instructions contained in a separate CSS file.** In website terminology, to 'print' means to be displayed on a web page. What is CSS ?A CSS file or cascading stylesheet is the file containing instructions on how to display web page components. In the past, all this information was contained in the HTML on the web page. Now, though, it is known that removing display and formatting instructions from the pagecode improves page load times, accessibility, and web standards implementation.What is HTTP ?Hypertext transfer protocol or HTTP is the ruleset that governs inter-computer communication. When invented, it facilitated the implementation of the worldwide web, which is an inter-computer functionality that exists on top of and integral with the Internet. In theory the Net and the web are two different things - to Internet routing controllers at any rate - but for the rest of us they mean the same thing. HTTP is the comms protocol that it all runs on.What is an application ?An application is a program, an item of software, a software application, or 'app'. It is a digital tool that is built to perform a specific function or range of functions on a computer.A person who develops such tools is called a developer, a programmer, or a software author. All these terms mean the same thing. What is source code ?'The source code' (or just source, or code) is a term used to describe the actual code that comprises a web page, and especially the way of viewing it by using a browser command or via a text editor after saving the page. Another version is pagecode. Examples:"Right-click the page in a browser, choose Source, and view the code." "This page's code looks very clean." "The source code shows too much scripting." All the page components are not present in the source code, but there are directions to all those components - ie URLS - in the source. For example the page will 'call' various other entities such as images, CSS files and scripts. |