What's in a Web Address? URLs. Domain Names. That "http:/'' thing and "www''.

What does it all mean? Most web addresses that you type in your browser are in the form of http:/www.somename.com. All of this is referred to as "the URL''. Each web page that your browser shows you has its own URL.

URL is an acronym that stands for Uniform Resource Locator, but it is easier to understand URLs if you think each of its parts separately.

Each part of a URL is separated by a dot, and is like a different line in a postal address with information about the web page you are looking for. There are two main parts to a URL. The first part of a URL indicates what protocol the web server and the browser are to use to communicate, and the second part is the domain name, which specifies where the web page, or web "resource'', is located.

To understand these two main parts, let's look at the common URL for the search engine Yahoo: http:/www.yahoo.com.

The http:/ part specifies that a web page should be fetched using the HTTP protocol, the protocol used by the web servers and web browsers to communicate with each other. Short for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol, HTTP specifies how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. For example, when you enter a URL in your browser, this actually sends an HTTP command to the web server directing it to fetch and transmit the requested web page.

Your web browser can use other protocols in addition to HTTP to communicate with web servers. For example when you enter your credit card information on a web page, your credit card information is generally sent using a protocol that encrypts information. When the web server wants encrypted information, the first part of the URL is https:/. The "s'' stands for Secure.

The www part is the conventional way to indicate that the address you typed is for a web page. It stands for World Wide Web. The www is not technically necessary, and big web sites sometimes drop the www part.

For example http:/uk.yahoo.com will take you to the yahoo web page that searches for web sites in the UK.

The second part of the URL, the domain name, starts after the http:/. Each web server (the computer that hosts a web site) has its own IP (Internet Protocol) address, which is a long string of numbers and dots. Because it is generally easier to remember names than it is to remember numbers, the domain name was created to map names to IP addresses. The domain name in the address http:/www.yahoo.com is yahoo.com. Translating the domain name you type in your web browser into an IP address is the task of a Domain Name System (DNS) server.

If you want to, you can type in a web site's IP address to pull up a site, but it's much easier to type the domain name and let the DNS server figure it out the IP address and send you there.

Each domain name has a suffix, such as .com, that indicates what kind organisation the web site belongs to. There are many different types of domain suffices, but by far the most popular (and hence "valuable'' if you are considering registering domain names as an investment) is a domain name ending in ".com''. The ".com'' suffix was designed to refer to a commercial business, but anyone can buy a domain name ending in ".com''. Dot-com domain names have been used by most large companies, who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on branding the "dot-com'' domain names in the minds of web users worldwide. In fact, .com names are so widespread that many people don't know other domain extensions exist! For example, the domain suffix ".edu'' is reserved for educational institutions, ".gov'' refers US government agencies, and ".mil'' is the suffix the US military uses.

Two other international top domains, ".net'' and ".org'', are becoming increasingly popular. ".net'' is officially re-served for network associations such as ISPs, but in practice anyone can register a ".net'' name. ".org'' is supposed to be for non-profit organisations, but again this rule is not enforced and anyone can buy .org names.

Anyone can register a .com, .net and .org domain name for 2 years for only $70. from www.networksolutions.com.

As more and more organisations reserve their own domain names, the dot coms and the .nets, in particular, are becoming scarce, and domain names are being bought and sold by domain name brokers, who can command hefty sums for choice domain name real estate. In December the domain name "business.com'' sold for $7.5 million, the most ever paid for an Internet address.

Web Addresses But, a new federal US law bans "cybersquatting,'' the pre-empting of Internet domain names with the aim of selling them to companies or people with trademark associations to them. For example, in September Rosa Parks, the woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus, setting off the Civil Rights movement in the US, won domain name rights to www.rosaparks.com, a site created by a man who planned to auction it off. The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development will use the web site www.rosaparks.org to educate visitors on Civil Rights and Rosa Parks, according to Parks' Chicago lawyer, Oscar Alcantara.

Most countries have their own top domains, such as ".fr'' for France or ".bm'' for Bermuda. Some countries are selling their cyber-suffix domain names. The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has the domain suffix ".tv'', and it is selling domain names like free.tv and china.tv for thousands of dollars to media organisations worldwide, because everyone recognises the term "tv''.

The rules for buying domain names vary from country to country. For example it does not cost anything to register a ".bm'' domain name, but your company/organisation must be registered in Bermuda. You can register ".bm'' domain names online at www.bermudanic.bm. For more information about country domain suffices, go to: www.domainnotes.com.

Anything that comes after .com or any other domain name suffix, simply specifies where on the web server the file for the web page is actually located. For example if I click on the link "Health'' on the yahoo main page, my web browser displays the yahoo health search page. Its URL is http:/dir.yahoo.com /Health /,which specifies that yahoo health search page is on the computer that hosts yahoo.com in a directory (or folder) called Health.

When you see more slashes and names after the main web site address, this just means that you're either digging deeper into the web server's folders, or your click is sending info to a database.

Although URLs can be long and cumbersome, you generally don't need to pay attention to most of the characters because DNS servers usually find the web page for you. The only unresolved issue is just how exactly do you pronounce "www''? Michelle Swartz's column appears on the first and third Wednesday of every month in The Royal Gazette's Personal Technology section. She can be reached at michelle y christers.net