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Introduction to URLs

Before learning how to optimize your URL’s (also known as Uniform Resource Locator) to boost your search engine rankings, it is important to understand the makeup and structure of a URL. A typical URL can be broken down into the following individual components: http://www.domain.com/subdirectory/filename.html. It is important to understand each and every element of this URL:

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol which defines the method to be used to view the resource.
Here are some of the most important facts to note about HTTP:

• HTTP is what tells us a webpage is reachable via a web-browser and that search engines can index it.
• HTTP also defines which Communication Port to use—in this case the default for http is Port 80. Different protocols typically use different ports.

WWW is the section of a domain name commonly referred to as the subdomain.
Here are some of the most important facts to note about the
Subdomain:

• Most websites use either www or else no subdomain at all.
• Many large composite websites make use of unique subdomain names to differentiate between different major sections, services, or topics within their sites. For example news.google.com.
• Subdomains can have multiple levels (technically speaking, there are few restrictions to their length or number). For example, example new.pressreleases.company.com. Or, if you watch some of your emails where people are trying to trick you into giving out your private account details (i.e., phishing schemes), you might see something likewww.citicorp.com.domain.somewhereelse.ru.
• Subdomains can and typically do translate to a separate IP address than the primary domain name.
• For non-SEO applications, a unique subdomain often is a different webserver but, nevertheless, it remains under the control of the same primary domain owner. For example, only Google can make use of uniquename.google.com because the DNS (Domain Name Server) addressing is tied to their primary domain, google.com, which is solely under Google’s control.
• Subdomain names are not case-sensitive. In other words, News.Google.com is the same as news.google.com.

DOMAIN refers to the domain name section of the URL.

Here are some of the most important facts to note about the Domain Name Section:

• The domain name section, combined with the .com, is translated by the Domain Name System into a numeric IP address which is used to connect to the actual webserver that hosts the resource.
• A domain name is also known as the hostname which refers to the name of the computer where it is hosted.
• A domain name may only be composed of letters, digits or hyphens.
• Domain names are limited in number to 63 characters in length (with limited exceptions for extensions such as .museum, in order to accomodate the length of the extension).
• Domain names are not case-sensitive—MyDomain.com is the same as mydomain.com.
• The last part of the domain name, .com, refers to the Top Level Domain or TLD, which are also not case sensitive.
• TLDs are classified by three types:
  • Generic: .com, .org, .gov, .edu, .biz, etc.
  • Country Codes: .us, .co.uk, .jp
  • Infrastructure: .arpa (the only one - for SEO purposes we can ignore this TLD)

SUBDIRECTORY – Refers to a subdirectory or what appears to be a subdirectory on the webserver.

FILENAME – Refers to the document file on the webserver.

.HTML – the filename extension that typically tells us what type of document.

• In this case, .html tells us the document is written in Hypertext Markup Language; in other words, it’s a typical webpage.

Everything in the URL beyond the TLD —i.e., subdirectory, filename, and extensions— are all case-sensitive.

• In other words, index.html is not the same as Index.Html

Next tutorial:  SEO Friendly URLs
Previous tutorial:  Search engine friendly site maps

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This tutorial written by:
Moshe Morris
President of SEMBasics
Chief Research Analyst at Internet Marketing Initiative (www.internetmi.com)

The content on this page is based off of an article published in SearchEngineNews.com.
To learn more about Search Engine News, click here.