Using Uniform Resource Locators

Anchors can link to remote data when a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is used with the HREF attribute. Any type of data on almost any type of information server on the Internet can be accessed using a URL. The URL has three main components:
  1. Server/Resource Type
  2. Internet Name (and port if required)
  3. Filename and path
Most URLs include the characters :// to divide the server type from the internet address, except for Usenet news URLs. Filename can be truncated to a forward slash / which tells the server to send a default document or directory listing. Telnet does not require a filename or path.
Here are example URLs for several common resource types :
file://scholar.lib.vt.edu/pub/next/HTML-Editor.FAT.compressed
gopher://vatech.lib.vt.edu/
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/library.html
news:comp.infosystems.www.providers
telnet://vtls.vt.edu
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