URL
| URL | |
|---|---|
| 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 a web address, is a reference to a resource on the World Wide Web. A URL specifies the location of a resource on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), although many people use the two terms interchangeably. A URL is most commonly used to reference a web page (HTTP/HTTPS) but is 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. As an example of a web page URL, https://www.example.com/index.html indicates protocol https, hostname www.example.com, and file name index.html.