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140 Part 1 Introduction

It is important that companies define a URL strategy which will help customers or part-
ners find relevant parts of the site containing references to specific products or campaigns
when printed in offline communications such as adverts or brochures.
There is further terminology associated with a URL which will often be required when
discussing site implementation or digital marketing campaigns, as shown in the box ‘What’s
in a URL?’.

Box 3.3 What’s in a URL?

A great example of different URL components is provided by Google engineer Matt
Cutts (Cutts, 2007). He gives this example:
http://video.google.co.uk:80/videoplay?docid=-7246927612831078230&hl=
en#00h02m30s
Here are some of the components of the URL:
The protocol is http. Other protocols include https, ftp, etc.
The host or hostname is video.google.co.uk.
The subdomain is video.
The domain name is google.co.uk.
The top-level domain or TLD is uk (also known as gTLD). The uk domain is also
referred to as a country-code top-level domain or ccTLD. For google.com, the TLD
would be com.
The second-level domain (SLD) is co.uk.
The port is 80, which is the default port for web servers (not usually used in URLs,
when it is the default although all web servers broadcast on ports).
The path is /videoplay. Path typically refers to a file or location on the web server,
e.g. /directory/file.html.
An example of the URL parameter is docid and the value of that parameter is
-7246927612831078230. These are often called the name, value pair. URLs often
have lots of parameters. Parameters start with a question mark (?) and are sep-
arated with an ampersand (&).
The anchor or fragment is ‘#00h02m30s’.

Domain name Domain name registration
registration
Most companies are likely to own several domains, perhaps for different product lines or
The process of reserving
a unique web address countries or for specific marketing campaigns. Domain name disputes can arise when an
that can be used to refer
to the company web site. individual or company has registered a domain name which another company claims they
have the right to. This is sometimes referred to as ‘cybersquatting’.
One of the best-known cases was brought in 1998 by Marks and Spencer and other high-
street retailers, since another company, ‘One In a Million Limited’, had registered names
such as marks&spencer.com, britishtelecom.net and sainsbury.com. It then tried to sell these
names for a profit. The companies already had sites with more familiar addresses such as
marksandspencers.co.uk, but had not taken the precaution of registering all related domains
with different forms of spelling and different top-level domains such as .net. Unsurprisingly,
an injunction was issued against One in a Million which as a result was no longer able to use
these names. The problem of companies’ names being misappropriated was common during
the 1990s, but companies still need to be sure to register all related domain names for each
brand since new top-level domain names are created through time such as .biz and .eu.
Managers or agencies responsible for web sites need to check that domain names are
automatically renewed by the hosting company (as most are today). For example, the .co.uk