How To Quote URLs
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What is a URL?
Wikipedia will tell you in detail. In
summary, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed a web address, is a
reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for
retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) although many people
use the two terms interchangeably. URLs occur most commonly to reference web pages (http), but are
also used for file transfer (ftp), email (mailto), database access (JDBC), and many other
applications.
The salient point, discussed on this web page, is how should you refer to a URL in print,
e.g. in the pages of Cave & Karst Science or the CREG Journal? If you are expecting a real
person to manually type the URL that you are quoting, then it makes sense to try to abbreviate it.
Even if you are creating a clickable link, to be followed by a machine, you can rely on the
machine making some helpful default assumptions.
Abbreviating a URL
Web browsers are good at interpreting what humans type, and web servers also make
assumptions about what a web browser is asking for, so the following set of rules can be relied on
to work, for most of the time.
- You do not need to type the http:// string at the start of a URL. Web browsers
will usually add http:// to the front of your address automatically.
- If the URL begins with the designation for a secure connection https:// and your
browser sends the insecure request to a web server, the web server will usually convert it - i.e.
you do not need to type https://. However, not all servers do that, so you will need to test your
URL, so see if it works without the https://.
- If the the first component of the URL after the protocol (i.e. the http bit) is
www. you can usually omit it. Web servers will usually convert the URL if they need to.
However, not all servers do that, so you will need to test your URL, so see if it works without
the www.
- If the URL ends in index.something then you can usually omit that, because
if the web server realises you have not given a file name it will usually supply a default.
However, some web pages are set up to deliberately not provide a default; instead they will
either give you a directory listing, or they will report a "404 Forbidden" message. Therefore, you
will need to test your URL, so see if it works without the index bit.
- Sometimes a web address is followed by a ? or # symbol. The bit after the
? is called the query string. The bit after the # is called the hash string
or fragment. If these occur after an index.something you can still omit the
index.something, but make sure the web page address has a / before the query
or hash string.
In all cases, test the URL you want to quote.
Shortcuts
You will have noticed that, quite often, you type in one URL and the web server presents
you with a different one. This is a shortcut and we use a lot of them on the BCRA web site.
See Shortcut links on the BCRA Site. All the
following URLs refer to the same page.
