URL’s Anatomy

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.

Finding information is easy ….but

How can you validate information obtained from the Internet and determine if it is authentic?

Two measures of web page validity are the URL and the content.

This presentation discusses the URL

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet. Slide 3

What do you know about theUniform Resource Locator (URL)?

http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/directory/staff.html

Protocol

Server/Host Name Country code

Extension

Page/Document/Filename

Directory/folder

Domain Name

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet. Slide 4

URL’s Anatomy

Protocol determines how the file will be transferred (in whole or in part).

– Examples: http and ftp

Domain name includes the name of the server where the information is stored and a suffix (also called an extension) which indicates the type and location of the server.

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet. Slide 5

Know your suffixes/extensions

Do you know what these suffixes indicate?

.com

.edu

.gov

.org

.net

.mil

What about these?

.uk

.au

.ca

.de

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet. Slide 6

Suffixes/Extensions

Types of servers:

.com – commercial

.edu - educational

.gov - government

.org - organizational

.net - network

.mil - military

Country and State codes:

.uk – United Kingdom

.au - Australia

.ca - California

.de - Delaware

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet. Slide 7

URL’s Anatomy (Continued)

A directory tells the computer specifically where to look for the requested information on the file server.

A filename tells which specific document or program should be retrieved from the directory.

1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet. Slide 8

URL’S Appendages

Other parts of an URL may include

~ (tilde) indicates a personal web page

.exe or .hqx indicates an executable program

= (equals) indicates a specific document or program

Question mark (?) indicates that the web server will perform a query