Relative and Fully-qualified URLs

URLs come in two forms:

• Fully Qualified URLs
  These URLs start with the "scheme" — http or https. Fully-qualified URLs express the complete information needed to locate the resource.
• Relative URLs
  Relative URLs express some part of the information needed to locate the resource -- the "missing" information is derived from the URL location of the resource which contains the link. These URLs are "relative" to the location of the containing resource.

Recap on Web Addresses - URLs

• URL/URI
  http://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/constitution
• Scheme
  http://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/constitution
• Host
  http://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/constitution
• Path
  http://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/constitution

Relative URLs

Relative location of a conference room:

• "The conference room is on the second floor, the first door to the right of the reception area."
  These direction can be resolved based on the current location of the building.

In the case of relative URLs, the information not expressed in the relative URL is derived from the current URL location.