A Guide to Library Research:
URL

A URL or Uniform Resource Locator identifies the location of an individual Internet resource. This location or address is similar to a postal address in that there are common elements to addresses which can be shared by several documents, just as each house on a street can share the same street name, zip code, city name, etc. However, just as each house on a street has its own number that uniquely identifies it, each Web page has its own unique file name that distinguishes it from other files located on the same computer in the same directory. Sample URL:

http://www.rutgers.edu/dir/dir2/file.html
The "http://" in the above URL identifies the Internet protocol used, hypertext transfer protocol - World Wide Web. The "www.rutgers.edu" identifies the computer used to store Web documents. The "dir/dir2" are directories located on the computer. The "file.html" names the individual file which will display on screen when asked for by another computer.