Internet Search: Reading a URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater and is the unique address for a web page or site.  It is also referred to as "web address."  The URL of a given web site will appear in what is known as the URL bar of the browser, as shown in the image below.

To understand more about URLs, let's take a look at the parts and what they represent in the following address: https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/reference-guide.pdf

• http or https - HyperText Transfer Protocol, in other words, the type of information being transfered is hypertext often you will see www which is optional but represents a page on the World Wide Web.
• apastyle.apa - the domain name, usually indicating the organization, company or college hosting the content.
• org - the primary web domain; others are .com, .gov, .edu, etc.
• instructional-aids - is a subdomain and usually represents a subdivision or section of the website.
• reference-guide.pdf - indicates a file name (reference-guide) and media type (PDF).