2 Hyperlinks & URLs

Identifying a Hyperlink

Text links are usually underlined and in a different colour from the rest of the text.
To determine if a graphic is hyperlinked, move your cursor arrow over the image. You know the item is hyperlinked if:
q The arrow cursor turns into a hand.
q A URL appears in the status bar at the lower left of your web browser.





How Hyperlinks Work

A text or graphic hyperlink hides a URL.
Clicking a hyperlink passes the URL to your browser.
Clicking different parts of a linked graphic, called an image map, takes you to different web pages or different places on the same page.
In addition to pointing to web pages, hyperlinks can access media files, such as sound or video clips.

Using Web URLs

A URL indicates where the web page is stored on the Internet.
You need to type a URL exactly for your browser to locate the desired web page.

TIP: URLs almost never use back slashes (). All slashes are forward slashes (/).

Although URLs may contain spaces between characters, they usually do not.
Some large websites have multiple URLs that access the same site.
The location box or address field on your browser indicates the URL of the page you arrived at after clicking a link.







Examples of URLs

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/
A directory of files at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that you can download

http://www.learnthenet.com
The home page for the Learn the Net website

news:rec.gardens.roses
A newsgroup about rose gardening

Anatomy of a URL

Here is how to interpret the various parts of a URL:

http:// www.learnthenet.com/english/start.htm

http:// -- Short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, this indicates a hypertext document or directory.

www. -- This indicates a page on the World Wide Web. (Sometimes "www" is missing.)

learnthenet.com/ -- Called the domain name, it often tells you the name of a company, university, or organization. It can also tell you the country of origin.

www.learnthenet.com/ -- Together, these indicate the web server name.

english/ -- This is directory or folder on the web server that contains a group of related web pages within the website.

start.htm -- This is a web page inside the folder. (The same file can be named start.html) A URL doesn't always include the name of the web page.



Source: learnthenet.com