How does URL work?

Have you ever considered know how typing www.google.com on the very address bar of your browser land you to a page like this or ever stumbled upon to think what are those characters which make up a full length URL! If yes, then you are in the right place😉

While some of the URL or Uniform Resource Locator is simple like google.com or india.gov.in other full-length URLs might be a bit confusing, especially when it contains words like https, &, #, = et cetera.

In this post I will show you what are the ingredients of an URL starting with the scheme itself, that is the word http://. The word HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transmission Protocol. It can be thought of as a protocol or sets of commands which are followed for transmission of web-pages. As a matter of fact, in this vast Internet, there are a lot of schemes like HTTP present.

Some other protocols include FTP or File Transfer Protocol which asits obvious name suggest is used for transferring files from one machine on the internet to another machine. Remember the last time you download your favorite album from the Internet, probably your browser just used the FTP protocol without letting you know 😅. Another famous scheme which you might have used is IRC or Internet Relay Chat which allows you to directly connect to you group chatroom.

The next part of a typical URL is usually the Domain Name, the name of a website like dropbox.com or amazon.in. The .com, .in, .net at the end is called the Top Level Domain or TLD, which represent the main categories which sort every website on the internet and help route request through a certain group of servers to get you to the correct website. Below are a list of various TLD and what they stand for :

Along with these top level domains there are also some country specific domains like .in for India, .us for United States and so on. Here is a infographics from Google Images which show which ccTLD represent which country specific its geographic region

More recently, country based TLDs are used for Domain Hacks like Goo.gl which allows URL to be shorter and has nothing to do with the country called Greenland for which the .gl TLD is made to represent.

The string after the Domain Name represents the path or the specific location of the page where it has been stored in a server. Each slash depicts a subfolder similar to how your folders are represented in a Windows machine.

As far the '?' Question marks are considered, they indicate some query which you supply to the website via your browser

For the above example after I have supplied the Blog ID to blogger.com to let me write this page when I logged in.

If a URL has multiple queries, this can be separated by '&' ampersand sign. It is mostly used to represent PHP queries or data like which browser you are using or from which page are you referred from to track you.

If you clicked on a link and without being redirected to another page move to some other location on the same page, then that was probably one by a fragment indicated by a pound sign.

Normally, this indicated to some specific element ID tag in the HTML. Now, these rules can sometimes violate like if you have ever visited a site based on some other country which donot uses Latin Characters like China or Japan you might encounter a weird domain name normally beginning with a 'xn--'. This means the original characters were converted in compatible character which the Domain Name Server can store and share for it to be universal and people from all regions can view these pages. Here are some TLD which are punny coded:

If you encounter a wired symbol on the right hand side of the domain name, then probably you have encountered a percent encoded for of domain which are generally represented by a (%) percentage sign.

Normally a %20 represents a space character. Below is a complete chart reference, feel free to go through it.

Hope I was able to help you understand what all those characters up there on your address bar means now. Thanks for spending your precious time in my blog. I would very much like to hear from you on the comments section below. Stay connected with me as I bring more simple yet exciting stuff here.Till then 👋👋👋.

Character	From Windows-1252	From UTF-8
space	%20	%20
!	%21	%21
"	%22	%22
#	%23	%23
$	%24	%24
%	%25	%25
&	%26	%26
'	%27	%27
(	%28	%28
)	%29	%29
*	%2A	%2A
+	%2B	%2B
,	%2C	%2C
-	%2D	%2D
.	%2E	%2E
/	%2F	%2F
0	%30	%30
1	%31	%31
2	%32	%32
3	%33	%33
4	%34	%34
5	%35	%35
6	%36	%36
7	%37	%37
8	%38	%38
9	%39	%39
:	%3A	%3A
;	%3B	%3B
<	%3C	%3C
=	%3D	%3D
>	%3E	%3E
?	%3F	%3F
@	%40	%40
A	%41	%41
B	%42	%42
C	%43	%43
D	%44	%44
E	%45	%45
F	%46	%46
G	%47	%47
H	%48	%48
I	%49	%49
J	%4A	%4A
K	%4B	%4B
L	%4C	%4C
M	%4D	%4D
N	%4E	%4E
O	%4F	%4F
P	%50	%50
Q	%51	%51
R	%52	%52
S	%53	%53
T	%54	%54
U	%55	%55
V	%56	%56
W	%57	%57
X	%58	%58
Y	%59	%59
Z	%5A	%5A
[	%5B	%5B
\	%5C	%5C
]	%5D	%5D
^	%5E	%5E
_	%5F	%5F
`	%60	%60
a	%61	%61
b	%62	%62
c	%63	%63
d	%64	%64
e	%65	%65
f	%66	%66
g	%67	%67
h	%68	%68
i	%69	%69
j	%6A	%6A
k	%6B	%6B
l	%6C	%6C
m	%6D	%6D
n	%6E	%6E
o	%6F	%6F
p	%70	%70
q	%71	%71
r	%72	%72
s	%73	%73
t	%74	%74
u	%75	%75
v	%76	%76
w	%77	%77
x	%78	%78
y	%79	%79
z	%7A	%7A
{	%7B	%7B
|	%7C	%7C
}	%7D	%7D
~	%7E	%7E
	%7F	%7F
`	%80	%E2%82%AC
	%81	%81
‚	%82	%E2%80%9A
ƒ	%83	%C6%92
„	%84	%E2%80%9E
…	%85	%E2%80%A6
†	%86	%E2%80%A0
‡	%87	%E2%80%A1
ˆ	%88	%CB%86
‰	%89	%E2%80%B0
Š	%8A	%C5%A0
‹	%8B	%E2%80%B9
Œ	%8C	%C5%92
	%8D	%C5%8D
Ž	%8E	%C5%BD
	%8F	%8F
	%90	%C2%90
‘	%91	%E2%80%98
’	%92	%E2%80%99
“	%93	%E2%80%9C
”	%94	%E2%80%9D
•	%95	%E2%80%A2
–	%96	%E2%80%93
—	%97	%E2%80%94
˜	%98	%CB%9C
™	%99	%E2%84
š	%9A	%C5%A1
›	%9B	%E2%80
œ	%9C	%C5%93
	%9D	%9D
ž	%9E	%C5%BE
Ÿ	%9F	%C5%B8
	%A0	%C2%A0
¡	%A1	%C2%A1
¢	%A2	%C2%A2
£	%A3	%C2%A3
¤	%A4	%C2%A4
¥	%A5	%C2%A5
¦	%A6	%C2%A6
§	%A7	%C2%A7
¨	%A8	%C2%A8
©	%A9	%C2%A9
ª	%AA	%C2%AA
«	%AB	%C2%AB
¬	%AC	%C2%AC
­	%AD	%C2%AD
®	%AE	%C2%AE
¯	%AF	%C2%AF
°	%B0	%C2%B0
±	%B1	%C2%B1
²	%B2	%C2%B2
³	%B3	%C2%B3
´	%B4	%C2%B4
µ	%B5	%C2%B5
¶	%B6	%C2%B6
·	%B7	%C2%B7
¸	%B8	%C2%B8
¹	%B9	%C2%B9
º	%BA	%C2%BA
»	%BB	%C2%BB
¼	%BC	%C2%BC
½	%BD	%C2%BD
¾	%BE	%C2%BE
¿	%BF	%C2%BF
À	%C0	%C3%80
Á	%C1	%C3%81
Â	%C2	%C3%82
Ã	%C3	%C3%83
Ä	%C4	%C3%84
Å	%C5	%C3%85
Æ	%C6	%C3%86
Ç	%C7	%C3%87
È	%C8	%C3%88
É	%C9	%C3%89
Ê	%CA	%C3%8A
Ë	%CB	%C3%8B
Ì	%CC	%C3%8C
Í	%CD	%C3%8D
Î	%CE	%C3%8E
Ï	%CF	%C3%8F
Ð	%D0	%C3%90
Ñ	%D1	%C3%91
Ò	%D2	%C3%92
Ó	%D3	%C3%93
Ô	%D4	%C3%94
Õ	%D5	%C3%95
Ö	%D6	%C3%96
×	%D7	%C3%97
Ø	%D8	%C3%98
Ù	%D9	%C3%99
Ú	%DA	%C3%9A
Û	%DB	%C3%9B
Ü	%DC	%C3%9C
Ý	%DD	%C3%9D
Þ	%DE	%C3%9E
ß	%DF	%C3%9F
à	%E0	%C3%A0
á	%E1	%C3%A1
â	%E2	%C3%A2
ã	%E3	%C3%A3
ä	%E4	%C3%A4
å	%E5	%C3%A5
æ	%E6	%C3%A6
ç	%E7	%C3%A7
è	%E8	%C3%A8
é	%E9	%C3%A9
ê	%EA	%C3%AA
ë	%EB	%C3%AB
ì	%EC	%C3%AC
í	%ED	%C3%AD
î	%EE	%C3%AE
ï	%EF	%C3%AF
ð	%F0	%C3%B0
ñ	%F1	%C3%B1
ò	%F2	%C3%B2
ó	%F3	%C3%B3
ô	%F4	%C3%B4
õ	%F5	%C3%B5
ö	%F6	%C3%B6
÷	%F7	%C3%B7
ø	%F8	%C3%B8
ù	%F9	%C3%B9
ú	%FA	%C3%BA
û	%FB	%C3%BB
ü	%FC	%C3%BC
ý	%FD	%C3%BD
þ	%FE	%C3%BE
ÿ	%FF	%C3%BF