| Uniform resource locator | |
| Abbreviation | URL |
|---|---|
| Status | Published |
| First published | 1994 |
| Latest version | Living Standard 2023 |
| Organization | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) |
| Committee | Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) |
| Series | Request for Comments (RFC) |
| Editors | Anne van Kesteren |
| Authors | Tim Berners-Lee |
| Base standards |
|
| Related standards | URI, URN |
| Domain | World Wide Web |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |
| Website | url |
A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web,[1] is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI),[2][3] although many people use the two terms interchangeably.[4][a] URLs occur most commonly to reference web pages (HTTP/HTTPS) but are also used for file transfer (FTP), email (mailto), database access (JDBC), and many other applications.
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).
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