When size doesn’t matter

The navigation toolbar is one of the key features of your web browsing experience, with the address bar being fundamental to the effective deployment of search. On a daily basis we enter information into this medium and wait expectantly for a vibrant and dynamic return for our efforts – but what do all the letters, numbers and symbols actually mean?

URL – Uniform Resource Locator

• The global address of documents and other resources on the world wide web
• Effectively the ‘web address’ found in the navigation toolbar (top of the browser)
• It is composed of the ‘protocol identifier‘, the ‘resource name‘, ‘domain name suffix‘

Protocol Identifier (http://HealthEngine.com.au/quintura.html)

• http://
  • Hyper Text Transfer Protocol – defines how messages are formatted and transmitted
• https://
  • Secure website protocol requiring password identification for the transmission of secure documents via the internet e.g. credit card payments
  • SSL (secure sockets layer) is the cryptographic layer used to to secure websites

Resource Name (http://HealthEngine.com.au/quintura.html)

• IP address – e.g. 165.110.118.57
  • Basically a 32-bit numeric address for a computer, server or device
  • Written as four numbers separated by (.)
  • Each number can be zero to 255
  • However these numbers are running out !! More specific information
• Domain name
  • Name used to represent one or more IP addresses
  • Used in a web address to denote web pages

Domain name suffix (http://HealthEngine.com.au/quintura.html)

• Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain it belongs to e.g.
  • .gov – Government agencies
  • .edu – Educational institutions
  • .org – Organizations (nonprofit)
  • .com - Commercial organisations
• The suffix often denotes the domain country of origin/server hosting e.g.  (Australia  as  .com.au)
  • Check out webopedia for a full list of countries and their domain extensions
  • Alternatively Firefox flag extension is a neat way to check the country of the websites server

Web Page (http://HealthEngine.com.au/quintura.html)

• Name of the actual web page, within the website – often denoted by the type of language used to write the page
• Hyper text Markup Language (html) – defines the structure and layout of the web document

How do I shorten a URL to make it easier to remember and easier to share?

There are lots of options to shorten a web address (URL). These are useful to create short and easy to remember URL’s to email, share and post

Short.to

Simple and effective – does exactly what it says on the tin. Remember to drag the ‘bookmarklet’ to your toolbar to be most effective

Other domain URL shortening sites include tinyurl.com and abe5.com

Beware the url re-direction sites e.g. tiny.cc, these create traffic to their own hosting domain instead of directly to your specified URL and also emphasize the full length of the URL you are shortening. Have moved away from such sites as there are so many better options which direct traffic straight to your chosen destination URL