Anatomy of the URL (Domain Name)
This is a quick look at the parts of the website address.
The URL – Uniform Resource Locator – gives the location of a file on the internet. It’s more commonly called the website address.
http:// - This is how information is transferred from a server to your web browser. It’s what opens a website. This is the part of the address that turns into a live link. It’s the http in that URL that makes a web page open up on your computer. Make sure to include this part in emails if you want it to become a working link.
www – We still add this to the address, mostly because it’s been around so we use it. It’s not really a necessary part of the URL anymore. But who can image totally getting rid of the letters for World Wide Web?
YourWebsite – Whatever name you give to your website with no spaces in the name.
.com – Commercial is the most commonly used identifier of the type of website. Other common ones are .org, .net, .edu, and .info.
Now, after all of that, your domain name isn’t really the location of your website. The actual location is a number. It looks something like 207.145.69.281. Domain names can be considered as short cuts to those numbers. People generally prefer names they can remember instead of numbers.
If for any reason you need or want to know what your IP (Internet Protocol) address is for your computer you can go to http://WhatIsMyIPAddress.com. You can also get the IP address of your website by clicking the link on the sidebar, Hostname to IP. Type your website URL in the box, click the button and it’ll show the number below. This site will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about IP addresses.
