An address referring to a document on the Internet. This can be used to reference a web page via HTTP or a file to be accessed via FTP, for example. The reason for a URL (rather then just the address) is to define completely what a computer must do, and where it must go, to access a document (sometimes even on it´s local hard drive in the case of ´file:´)

The syntax of a URL consists of four elements:

Protocol://address/path/document - here are a few examples:

HTTP://www.pawprint.net/index.php" class="newWindow">http://www.pawprint.net/index.php (the document ´index.php´ accessed at this server [no path necessary] via the HTTP protocol)

FTP://www.pawprint.net/index.php" class="newWindow">ftp://www.pawprint.net/index.php (the same document accessed via the FTP protocol)

There are many other posibilities for protocols like https: mailto: file: and some browsers have event introduced other propritary protocols.