A look at Uniform Resource Locators (URL's)

The World Wide Web offers a group of documents that connect to each other with uniform resource locators, or URLs. A URL is a technical, web-related term used in with 2 meanings: A URL is the unique address for a file that is available on the internet.

The typical way to get to a web site is to type the URL of its home page file in your web browser's address line.

The idea of a uniform set of words for worldwide addresses or global identifiers of network-retrievable documents was the original idea of the world wide web. In the early internet uses, these identifiers were called "document names", "web addresses" and "Uniform Resource Locators".

A URL is 1 location for 1 resource or web page. The same resource should not be available from multiple URLs, as this results in confusion.

Clean URLs are examples os web services that have been created to allow users to create short URLs which are easier to write down, remember or pass around. They are also more suitable for use where space is limited.

An example of the difference between "clean" and "standard" URLs could be seen as:
Standard: https://example.com/index.php?section=articles&subsection=recent
Clean: https://example.com/articles/recent/ or https://example.com/articles/2007/

Clean URLs with web services: Web services have been created which allows users to create short URLs calle3d clean URLs.

Examples would be in an IRC conversation, or as an email signature, and also online forums. These brief URL addresses work well with a fixed width document (for example in an email). Several sites and software are listed below:

* TinyURL.com - probably the most widely used due to its memorable name. An example is: https://www.tinyurl.com/qvqqo

* doiop.com - one of the early services which offers keywords as opposed to random URLs. Example: https://doiop.com/keyword

* dtmurl.com

* gu.ma

* notlong.com - lets you choose your own sub-domain.
Example: https://your-choice.notlong.com/

* SnipURL.com (also known as: snurl.com, snipr.com)

* shorl.com

- URLStrip.com

These services sometimes hide the final destination from a web user. This can be used to send people to sites that web surfers may see as offensive. Also some issues can
crash or compromise their computer using browser vulnerabilities.

To help fight such abuse, TinyURL allows a user to set a cookie-based preference such that TinyURL stops at the TinyURL website, giving a preview of the final link, when that user clicks TinyURLs. By substituting https://preview.tinyurl.com for
https://tinyurl.com. In the URL is another way letting the web surfer stop at a preview of the final link before clicking to continue.

The first part of the URL address tells the browser what protocol to use and the second part specifies the IP address or the domain name where the document or picture or music etc -resource is located.

Some services, including Google Toolbar and Google Web Accelerator, send the uniform resource locators ("URLs") of web pages that you request to Google. When you use these services, Google will receive and store the URL sent by the web sites you visit, including any of your personal information inserted into those URLs by the web site operator. Some Google services (such as Google Toolbar) enable you to opt-in or opt-out of sending URLs to Google, while for others (such as Google Web Accelerator) the sending of URLs to Google is intrinsic to the service.

For example, when you submit information to a web page (such as a user login ID or registration information), the operator of that web site may "embed" that information - including personal information - into its URL typically, after a question mark ("?") in the URL.