This post will look at what makes up a URL or web address. This may be particularly useful if you don’t know how a web address is formatted or if you are planning how best to make use of your hosting account.
A URL is a web address that references a resource on the web, specifying where it is located and how it can be retrieved. Most web browsers display the URL of a webpage above the page in an address bar.
A typical URL might look like http://www.example.com/index.html with the protocol (HTTP), the domain name (http://www.example.com) and a file name (index.html).
The web protocol will be either HTTP or HTTPS. HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the original web protocol where information is sent in plain text over the web. HTTPS is the secure web protocol (the ‘S’ stands for Secure) and means information sent to and from this webpage will be encrypted. With HTTPS sites you will often see a ‘lock’ symbol next to the URL in a browser’s address bar – this helps you know if the website you are on is secure, and is particularly useful when shopping and banking online.
The domain name will include the main domain name (e.g. ‘example’ in ‘example.com’) and a top-level domain name (e.g. .com). The file name might reference a web page or an image file, for example.
Your Domain
With your account you will either be provided with a subdomain name or a top level domain name in addition to your web hosting space. You may have the choice to decide what this URL name will be, but for this example let’s say you want to use ‘example.com’:
In this example, “blog.” is your subdomain name, “example” is the main domain name and “.com” is the top-level domain name (the same would be true for “.org”, “.net”, etc.).
If you’re prompted with signing up for a subdomain, then ‘blog.example.com’ is known as the root domain for the web hosting associated with your account. Here you can create a main website. You can then create additional websites on (sub-) subdomains and directories, which you can learn more about in the Subdomain vs Subdirectories documentation in this knowledgebase.
