So, just what is a URL? People may use URLs everyday without realizing what they are. Well, it is basically a web address…like the ones you type into your web browser. The letters URL stand for Uniform Resource Locator. And they are used to locate resources (usually files of some sort) on the Internet.
What Is a URL Good For?
In terms of designing a web site, what is a URL good for? Well, you will mostly use URLs to link to other websites or to other pages within your own website. You will also use them to reference images to make your website look pretty.
For example, if your website was www.mywebsite.com and you had a folder called images on your site’s root directory called “images” where you stored all your images, you could reference that folder with a URL like shown below…
If you had a specific image file–like “flower.jpg”–you could reference that with the URL below…
Both of the above examples use absolute URLs, which is how you would reference the file from a site other than your own. If you wanted to reference the flower image from within your own site, you would likely use a relative URL, like the one below…
What’s this stuff about absolute and relative URLs?
Absolute and Relative URLs
URLs come in two basic forms: the absolute URL and the relative URL. We will learn about them in later lessons, but, if you’re in some kind of a hurry, you can just click on these links: absolute URL and relative URL.
Now You Know What Is a URL
Next were going to look at the basic parts of a url, but right now you can be happy because you know what is a URL!
