URL

Full Title or Meme

The Universal Resource Locator was created as a human-readable name to allow look-up of the actual address of a network attached computer.

Context

• What was actually defined was a hodge-podge of information that no normal human could every understand. It now includes:

1. A schema, which most people call a protocol. For a web site this will be HTTP: or for secure sites HTTPS:
2. The host name which can be a long string of uncertain meaning; not just IBM.COM but also:
3. The port number which can be used to extend the number of End Points that one computer can host. for the will defaults are: 80 or 443.

• Originally all URLs were written in ASCII characters. As might be expected some countries want different character sets to correspond to their local language.