What are URLs and how do they work?

What is a URL?

URL stands for uniform resource locator, and on a website the URL is the specific location of a video, file, page, etc. on the internet. Sir Tim Berners-Lee was accredited with the coinage of this term, and in 1994 the URL was suggested a standard by Lee. Interestingly, URLs were created based on the concept of hypertext, a term coined by Theodore Holm Nelson in 1963, where information or specific parts in a website/piece of text were linked to others.

Components of a URL and what do they do?:

A URL comprises of three parts: the protocol, domain name, and finally, path. At the beginning of a URL, there is the *protocol.* On most websites, this would be the HTTP, HHTPS or even the less common FTP. The protocol formats the information (data) it receives into something understandable and meaningful, thus telling the browser how to communicate with a website’s server, in order to send a retrieve information. Followed by this is the *domain name*. This is the identifier for a specific site, and usually brings you to the home page if no path is added on. The domain name usually ends with a top level domain (TLD) for example, .com, .org, .co.za, etc. When you enter the domain name in your web browser, the servers on the domain name system (DNS) lookup name servers associated with the domain. When your request reaches the web server, it fetches the web page along with pieces of information associated with it. The domain name can also begin with xn. This indicates that the original characters were changed into a domain name compatible with the DNS Finally, at the end is the *path* (as known as the URL slug). Each page or file on a website has it’s own path, and this part of the URL takes you directly to that information. Paths comprise of many symbols which indicate various things: A forward slash indicates a subfolder, A question mark indicates a query by the user, and multiple queries are separated by ampersands, A hashtag indicates a specific place on a website You may also find that there is percent encoding in the path. This means that the original characters have been changed. For example, a $ sign will change to %24.

Thoughts:

Because URLs specifically show us results based on what webcrawlers can find, it is important to think about what content you are accessing and who is creating that content, and we know that countries such as America and England are dominating when it comes to content creation. This leads to techno-colonialsm, which is a term coined by Randy Bush in 2015 to describe the phenomenon of "the exploitation of poorer cultures by richer ones through technology". If technology is passed through a knowledge system, and the knowledge of technology requires a codification or verbalisation to be effectively used and understood, then what does that mean for those who do not have access to this knowledge? In the digital age, this gap between those who can and know how to use technology is emphasised. Job opportunites, health care systems, and other things which are solely based online cannot be used by a big portion of the world. Where URLs come into play with our website building, is to know where our sites come from and are based. More importantly, knowing which elements do what helps when you want to customise them.

[1] Andrea Ballatore, M. G. S. S., 2017. Digital Hegemonies: The Localness of Search. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 107(5), p. 194—1215. [2] Bush, R., 2015. On Techno-Colonialism. [Online] Available at: httcs://csg.com/on-technocolonialism.html [Accessed 2022]. [3] Bloom, Z., 2020. The History of the URL. [Online] Available at: https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-history-of-the-url/ [Accessed 2022]. [4] Hughes, J., 2022. What Is a Website URL? The 3 Most Important Parts Explained. [Online] Available at: https://themeisle.com/blog/what-is-a-website-url/ [Accessed 2022]. [5] Indiantopblogs, n.d. Top Blogs. [Online] Available at: https://www.indiantopblogs.com/2021/07/what-is-https.html#how-does-https-work [Accessed 2022]. [6] Techquickie, 2017. How do URLS work?. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvF_pnJ6zrY [Accessed 2022]