URL parts canonical terminology

Question

I've been reading around and it seems there is no very well coherent and fully accepted terminology for the URL parts. Is that true? I'd like to know which standards exists for URL parts terminology. What is the most common? Is there any well established standard?

I found the following:

1. RFC3986 section 3

---

     foo://example.com:8042/over/there?name=ferret#nose
     \_/   \______________/\_________/ \_________/ \__/
      |           |            |            |        |
   scheme     authority       path        query   fragment
      |   _____________________|__
     / \ /                        \
     urn:example:animal:ferret:nose

2. window.location from Javascript on browsers

---

protocol://username:password@hostname:port/pathname?search#hash
-----------------------------href------------------------------
                             -----host----
-----------      origin      -------------

• protocol - protocol scheme of the URL, including the final ':'
• hostname - domain name
• port - port number
• pathname - /pathname
• search - ?parameters
• hash - #fragment_identifier
• username - username specified before the domain name
• password - password specified before the domain name
• href - the entire URL
• origin - protocol://hostname:port
• host - hostname:port

3. NodeJS, module url

---

Above the line with the URL you see node's url module old API, whilst under the line you see the new API. It seems node shifted from a RFC standard terminology to a more browser friendly standard terminology, that is, similar to browser's windows.location.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                              href                                              │
├──────────┬──┬─────────────────────┬────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────┤
│ protocol │  │        auth         │          host          │           path            │ hash  │
│          │  │                     ├─────────────────┬──────┼──────────┬────────────────┤       │
│          │  │                     │    hostname     │ port │ pathname │     search     │       │
│          │  │                     │                 │      │          ├─┬──────────────┤       │
│          │  │                     │                 │      │          │ │    query     │       │
"  https:   //    user   :   pass   @ sub.example.com : 8080   /p/a/t/h  ?  query=string   #hash "
│          │  │          │          │    hostname     │ port │          │                │       │
│          │  │          │          ├─────────────────┴──────┤          │                │       │
│ protocol │  │ username │ password │          host          │          │                │       │
├──────────┴──┼──────────┴──────────┼────────────────────────┤          │                │       │
│   origin    │                     │         origin         │ pathname │     search     │ hash  │
├─────────────┴─────────────────────┴────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────────────┴───────┤
│                                              href                                              │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

4. Highly ranked article from Matt Cutts

---

URL: http://video.google.co.uk:80/videoplay?docid=-7246927612831078230&hl=en#00h02m30s

• 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. 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. Other ports are possible; a web server can listen on port 8000, for example. When the port is 80, most people leave out the port.
• The path is /videoplay. Path typically refers to a file or location on the web server, e.g. /directory/file.html
• This URL has parameters. The name of one parameter is docid and the value of that parameter is 7246927612831078230. URLs can have lots parameters. Parameters start with a question mark (?) and are separated with an ampersand (&).

---

Some of my concerns:

1. Is window.location a standard or based on a standard?

2. Shall I call http:// the protocol or the scheme?

3. Shall I say host or authority?

4. Why nor window.location nor node have properties for TLD or other domain parts, when available?

5. The terminological difference between hostname (example.com) and host (example.com:8080) is well established?

6. for node origin does not include username:password@ whilst for windows.location it does

I'd like to follow on my code a well established standard or best practises.

Answer 1

The URI standard is STD 66. This is currently mapped to RFC 3986.

So for the generic URI syntax, these terms are authoritative, currently:

• scheme
• authority
• userinfo
• host
• port
• path
• query
• fragment

Answer 2

Terminology depends on which architectural style/technology you are using.

I prefer REST style for identifying different parts of my url REST URI Standard

But I repeat again there are no single universal standard to represent URL