Hyperlink, also called link have now become an essential part of our everyday life. If there had been no links, we would not even have a web (websites)! It is the network of systems that links and connects the various web pages of the huge internet
A hyperlink is a word, phrase, icon, image/graphic or video that you can click on, and send you as a visitor to some related web document, picture, or file. A hyperlink can even point to a specific section of a web page using what is called an anchor. By cross-linking through different websites, a hyperlink makes it quite easy to surf through the innumerable webpages.
The Web is comprised of hyperlinks linking trillion of pages and files to one another. You'll know that something is a hyperlink when your mouse pointer changes from arrow to a pointing finger to indicate it can be opened. Also, at the bottom left of the window, the URL of the link should appear to help you identify where the link points.
When you click, tap, or select a hyperlink, the browser leaves the current page you are viewing and opens the link for the page. It is also possible to create a hyperlink (named anchor) to a location on the same page if the contents in the page are lengthy. A link may also open a new tab and keep the current window open as a background tab.
Hyperlinks are what allow web page to connect to other web pages, and without them you would need to know the URL - Uniform Resource Locator (full address) for every page and file on the Internet.
Universe Resource Locator - URL
Every time you click a link on a website or type a web address into a browser’s address bar, it’s a URL. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator; is a unique identifier used to locate a resource such as web page, an image, video, a CSS document etc. on the Internet and a mechanism for retrieving it. URL is a standardized naming convention for addressing documents or files accessible over the Internet and Intranet. Think of it like a street address, with each portion of the URL represent different parts of the address, and each giving you different information.
Although, a URL could look complex and long that contains all the information necessary to find files on the internet. It’s made up of five basic parts; protocol indicator/scheme, hostname/domain, folder/path to resources, parameters, and an anchor – each of which has a specific function. Depending on the application, a URL can include additional information, to specify user names or input to a server-side script, but normally these five parts cover the basics.
URLs have the following format, the details of each part will be discuss below.
URL can be likened to a regular postal mail address: the scheme represents the postal service you want to use, the domain name is the city or town, and the port is like the zip code; the path represents the building where your mail should be delivered; the parameters represent extra information such as the number of the apartment in the building; and, finally, the anchor represents the actual person to whom you've addressed your mail. If some of the information is missing ? say, the city name or the number of the building ? the carrier can’t deliver the mail to the right person. Similarly, if the protocol indicator or hostname is missing from a URL, browsers can not link to a specific file because they won’t know where and how to look for the file. Likewise, if path to the file is missing, browsers won’t know which piece of information to pull out from the server.
1 - Scheme/protocol
Every URL begins with the scheme, which indicates the protocol that the browser must use to request the resource from the Internet. There are many types of schemes such as mailto: but for typical web browsing, you will mostly see http and https. Your browser usually won’t show the scheme in the address bar, and usually you don’t need to type the scheme when typing a web address; instead, you can just begin with the domain name. The scheme is still always part of the URL; it just isn’t being displayed.
2 - Authority/Domain
The part that follows scheme in the URL is called Authority or Domain, which is separated from the scheme with the character pattern ://. If present, the authority includes both the domain (e.g. www.google.com) and the port (80), separated by a colon: www.google.com:80
- The domain indicates which Web server is being requested. Usually this is a domain name, but an IP address (e.g. 216.58.223.228) may also be used - but this is rare as it is much less convenient.
- The port indicates the technical "gate" used to access the resources on the web server. It is usually omitted if the web server uses the standard ports of the HTTP protocol (80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS) to grant access to its resources. Otherwise, it is mandatory.
The separator between the scheme and authority is ://. The colon separates the scheme from the next part of the URL, while // indicates that the next part of the URL is the authority.
Some URL doesn't use an authority, such as the mail client (mailto:foobar). It contains a scheme but doesn't use an authority component. Therefore, the colon is not followed by two slashes and only acts as a delimiter between the scheme and mail address.
3 - Path to resource
The path to the resource on the Web server is something like this www.example.com/path/to/myfile.html, which tells a browser to load myfile.html from the folder named “to” which resides in a parent folder called “path”. If you don’t specify a path and only enter a domain name, your browser is still loading a specific page; it’s just loading a default page, which usually will help you navigate to other pages.
4 - Parameters
Some URLs include a string of characters after the path - beginning with a question mark, such as ?key1=value1&key2=value2 - called the parameter string. You have probably noticed this part of a URL appear in your address bar after performing a search on Google or YouTube. The parameter string can be clear or confusing to a human user, but it is critical information for the server, the Web server can use those parameters to do extra stuff before returning the resource or information you want.
5 - Anchor
The anchor of a web page in URL is usually appears after the path, the anchor tells your browser to scroll to or load a specific part of the page. Usually, the anchor begins with a hashtag and is used to direct your browser to a specific part of a very long page in a html document, much like a bookmark. On a video or audio document, the browser will try to go to the time the anchor represents. Different anchors don’t load different pages; they simply tell the browser to display different parts of the page.
Keep in mind that these are the most common components of a URL. There are many other parts, but these are the ones you will mostly come across often, and that can usually give you the most information of a resource on the Internet.
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