{"id":21612,"date":"2020-01-28T15:48:46","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T15:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/url"},"modified":"2026-09-16T12:30:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:30:32","slug":"url","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/url","title":{"rendered":"URL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad alignright wp-image-15066 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/url.png\" alt=\"URL\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" style=\"margin-top:0;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/url.png 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/url-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A <strong>URL<\/strong> is an identifier that locates a resource and indicates how to access it. Its name stands for <em>Uniform Resource Locator<\/em>. It is a type of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/uri\">URI<\/a> and may point to a web page, image, file, service, or any other resource associated with a recognized scheme. Although web address and URL are often used as equivalents, the concept is not limited to HTML documents or the HTTP protocol.<\/p>\n\n<h2>URL structure and components<\/h2>\n<p>The generic syntax defined in <a href=\"https:\/\/datatracker.ietf.org\/doc\/html\/rfc3986\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RFC 3986<\/a> organizes a URL into components. Not all of them have to appear, and their interpretation depends on the scheme. In an address such as <code>https:\/\/<wbr>example.com:443\/<wbr>products\/<wbr>item?<wbr>page=2#<wbr>details<\/code>, the following elements can be distinguished:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Scheme:<\/strong> <code>https<\/code> indicates the rules used to interpret and retrieve the resource. A scheme is not always equivalent to a network protocol.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Authority:<\/strong> begins after <code>\/\/<\/code> and may contain user information, a host, and a port. On the web, it usually includes the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/domain\">domain name<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Path:<\/strong> identifies a location within the namespace managed by the server. Its hierarchical appearance does not prove that an equivalent physical directory exists.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Query:<\/strong> begins with <code>?<\/code> and carries parameters whose structure and meaning are defined by the application.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fragment:<\/strong> begins with <code>#<\/code> and identifies a part or state within the resource. It is normally processed by the client and is not sent to the server in an HTTP request.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The host is not necessarily a specific server. It may resolve to several machines, a content delivery network, or an intermediary. The port can also be omitted when the scheme&#8217;s default value is used. Terms such as server, directory, and page therefore describe only some cases and do not form a general URL grammar.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme and host are treated as case-insensitive in common web uses, but the path, query, or fragment may follow different rules. Changing letters, slashes, parameters, or encoding without knowing the application may produce another address or an error.<\/p>\n<h2>Absolute URLs, relative references, and resolution<\/h2>\n<p>An absolute URL includes the information needed to locate the resource without depending on another address. A relative reference omits parts and is resolved using a base URL. For example, <code>images\/logo.png<\/code> may become a different address according to the page or <code>base<\/code> element from which it is interpreted.<\/p>\n<p>References beginning with <code>\/<\/code> keep the origin and replace the path; those beginning with <code>\/\/<\/code> inherit the scheme but provide another authority. The <code>.<\/code> and <code>..<\/code> segments represent path operations during resolution. They should not be confused with redirects performed by a server.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/url.spec.whatwg.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WHATWG URL Standard<\/a> defines the parsing and serialization used by modern browsers. This explains why a string entered in the address bar may be normalized before it is displayed or sent. The visible form, copied string, and internally used representation are not always character-for-character identical.<\/p>\n<h2>Characters, encoding, and normalization<\/h2>\n<p>A URL uses a character set in which some symbols have reserved functions. Colons, slashes, question marks, number signs, and other delimiters cannot always be interpreted as ordinary text. When a character is invalid in a position or would have another function, it may be represented through percent-encoding, formed by <code>%<\/code> and two hexadecimal digits.<\/p>\n<p>Encoding is not encryption and does not hide information. An email address, identifier, or personal detail included in a query may be exposed in histories, logs, analytics, referral headers, and external tools. Secrets and credentials should not be carried in a URL merely because they appear encoded.<\/p>\n<p>Internationalized domain names may be displayed with Unicode characters and represented through Punycode for resolution. This difference supports localized addresses, but it can also be used to create visually similar names. Users should verify the actual host before entering data or downloading files.<\/p>\n<p>Two different URLs may lead to equivalent content without being identical strings. Default ports, permitted capitalization, empty segments, parameters, trailing slashes, and encoded variants may affect comparison. Normalization must follow the rules of the scheme and application; no universal transformation can be applied without risk.<\/p>\n<h2>Operation in browsers and HTTP<\/h2>\n<p>When a web URL is opened, the browser parses its components, resolves the host, establishes the required connection, and builds a request for the path and query. The server may return the resource, an error, or a redirect to another address. The fragment is applied afterward to the response and is not normally part of the HTTP request.<\/p>\n<p>The requested URL may differ from the final address because of redirects, rewrite rules, language selection, authentication, or navigation within an application. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/display-url\">display URL<\/a> is the address shown in certain advertising contexts and does not replace the destination URL or the string eventually loaded by the browser.<\/p>\n<p>HTTPS protects transport between the client and the endpoint to which it connects when validation is correct. It does not prove that the content is true, that the website is legitimate, or that a download is safe. The host, path, and source of the link still require evaluation.<\/p>\n<h2>URLs, SEO, and measurement<\/h2>\n<p>Search engines use URLs to discover, request, and distinguish resources. A stable, understandable structure supports maintenance and linking, but including words in the path does not guarantee a position. Google recommends <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/crawling-indexing\/url-structure?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">simple URL structures<\/a>, consistent parameters, and readable characters where possible.<\/p>\n<p>The same page may be accessible through tracking parameters, filters, sorting, protocol differences, or host variants. If these addresses do not provide different resources, they may fragment signals and crawling effort. Redirects, internal links, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/rel-canonical\">Rel Canonical<\/a> help indicate the preferred version, but they should reflect the website&#8217;s actual behavior.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/slug\">slug<\/a> is only one part of the path, not the complete URL. Changing it alters the address and may require a permanent redirect, updates to internal links, the sitemap, hreflang, structured data, and measurement systems. A migration is not completed merely by changing visible text.<\/p>\n<p>Analytics platforms may treat the query, fragment, host, and protocol in different ways. Before comparing pages or campaigns, rules should be defined for parameters, capitalization, trailing slashes, and cross-domain referrals. A URL is a technical string with consequences for navigation, security, indexing, and measurement; interpreting it requires preserving its components and the context in which it is used.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A URL locates a resource through a scheme and address. Learn about its components, encoding, types, operation, SEO, and security risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":79795,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1415,1258],"class_list":["post-21612","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-link-codes","encyclopedia-tag-url-paths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}