What Is My Webpage's Address or URL

You've created a new web page on a free web hosting site and you are righteously proud. You spent a lot of time and effort getting it just right and it looks great. Now you want to tell your friends and associates where your webpage is so they can come and see all the work you have done.

Let's Send Everyone the URL, or Not

There's only one problem. You don't know the URL, also known as a web address, of your webpage. What do you do now? How do you find out what the web address is?

The first thing you can do is go into the file manager that your hosting provider has provided. This will help you find the things that you need to find your website.

The Four Components of Your Web Address (URL)

There are 4 basic parts to your web address. If you know these 4 things you will be able to find your homepage's web address.

  1. The Domain Name 
    1. Of the 4 things you need to know, this is the only one you will have to find out to get your web address. The other 4 you will already know, even if you didn't know you knew.
    2. The domain name is often the beginning of the web address. Sometimes, as with Freeservers, it's the second part of the web address and the username is the first. This is the part of the web address provided for you by the hosting provider. It usually has the name of the web host in it.
    3. ​For example:
      1. Freeservers 
        1. Domain Name: www.freeservers.com
        2. Your Web Site URL: http://username.freeservers.com
      2. Weebly
        1. Domain Name: weebly.com
        2. Your Web Site URL: http://username.weebly.com
  2. Your Username
    When you signed up for your hosting service you had to give them a username and a password. The username that you chose at sign-up is the username for your website. Just type this, in the right combination with the domain, and you have the base for your web address. Find out in the FAQ that your hosting service provides where your username goes in the web address at the same time that you find out what the domain for your web address is.
  3. Name of the Folder
    1. If you have set up a series of folders to keep your pages, graphics and other files in, then you will need to add the name of the folder to your web address to get to the webpages that are in the folders. If you have webpages that you didn't create new folders for, then you don't need this part. Your webpages will just be in the main folder.
    2. Most of the time, if you want to keep your website organized, you will have set up folders to keep track of your files. You will have one for pictures, called something like "graphics" or "pictures". Then you will have folders for specific things like dates, family or whatever else your site may be about.
  4. Name of the File
    1. Every webpage you create will have a name. You may call your webpage "homepage", then the filename will be something like "homepage.htm" or "homepage.html". If you have a good website you will probably have a lot of different files, or webpages, all with different names. This is the last part of your web address.

What It Looks Like

Now that you know the different parts of the web address, let's find yours. You found out what the domain is for your hosting service, you know your username, folder name and file name, so let's put it all together. Your web address will look something like this:

http://username.domain.com/foldername/filename.html
or

http://www.domain.com/username/foldername/filename.html

If you are linking to your homepage, and it is located in the main folder, your web address will look like this:

http://username.domain.com
or

http://www.domain.com/homepage.html

Have fun showing off your new site when you pass around your web address!

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Your Citation
Roeder, Linda. "What Is My Webpage's Address or URL." ThoughtCo, Nov. 18, 2021, thoughtco.com/webpages-address-or-url-2654252. Roeder, Linda. (2021, November 18). What Is My Webpage's Address or URL. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/webpages-address-or-url-2654252 Roeder, Linda. "What Is My Webpage's Address or URL." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/webpages-address-or-url-2654252 (accessed March 28, 2024).