Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Structure

An URL is a string of characters that contains information about how to fetch a resource from its location. An URL specifies the primary access mechanism and the network location of a resource. A typical URL consists of the following components:

  1. the protocol used to connect to the server (e.g. HTTPS)
  2. the server hostname (e.g. study-ccnp.com)
  3. the document path (e.g. /ospf)

 

Here is a graphical representation of these components:

URL structure

URLs can also be used to reference documents other than websites. Here are some examples of using URLs to reference an FTP resource, mail address and local files:

  • ftp://www.study-ccnp.com/uploads.zip – refers to the uploads.zip file on the study-ccnp.com server that can be accessed using FTP
  • mailto: – a hyperlink that allows users to send emails to using their default email client program.
  • file://C:\images – used to open the C:\images folder on the local computer

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