Page 118 - digitalliteracy

6.1 Leaving a Trail on the Web

When you visit a website, its URL is recorded in your computer browser history files. You
can see some of this historical record yourself by clicking the down arrow at the end of the
address bar at the top of any page of your web browser. Law enforcement officials and investi-
gators often obtain court orders to search the computers of crime suspects for evidence. They
can often retrieve the entire history file on the computer and determine what websites users
of that computer have visited.

Let’s look at some examples of the way a URL is structured. Figure 6.1 is an example of the
URL for a page on the Ashford University website that discusses transfer credits.
Figure 6.1: The structure of a URL

While it might look like a random assortment of letters, a URL is really a detailed path to a specific file or
web page.

URLs can sometimes be quite long, but the five main elements of the URL for web documents
are the same as the Ashford example. For instance, if someone wanted to learn how to become
an elementary school teacher in California, the California Commission on Teacher Creden-
tialing has posted that information at this URL: http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/teach
-elementary.html. The elements of this URL are explained in Table 6.2. Note: A URL is not case
sensitive, which means you can type it either in all caps or in lowercase letters. For consis-
tency, however, we suggest you always type it in lowercase letters.

Table 6.2: The elements of the web address or URL for
http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/teach-elementary.html

Element Description

http:// Indicates the protocol to be used to access a file, usually hypertext transfer
protocol (http). This protocol (or https:// for secure sites) tells you that this
information is on the World Wide Web.
www. A reference to the World Wide Web. Note: This abbreviation is optional;
sometimes domain names do not include it.

.ctc California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (a division of the domain).
.ca State of California domain/host name.
.gov/ Web extension for a government website.

credentials/teach The path to the specific page where the elementary school credentialing
-elementary.html information is located.

Adapted from Digital Literacy Standard Curriculum Version 4. (2015). Retrieved June 02, 2016,
from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/DigitalLiteracy/curriculum4.aspx#interenetwww

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