Most web browsers display the URL of a web page above the page in an address bar. A typical URL could have the form http://www.example.com/index.html, which indicates a protocol (http), a hostname (www.example.com), and a file name (index.html).

Below is an illustration of the basic parts of a URL. A URL will always have a scheme or protocol, a domain name, and path. However, URLs may contain more attributes than the basic components listed above.

A URL, or uniform resource locator, is an address that helps your web browser locate a specific webpage, picture, file, or other resource. Your browser takes the address, translates the domain name to the IP address of the server, and the rest of the URL shows the path to the specific file on that server.