Web pages that don't have the extension ".html"?

[Gerald N]

What is the default file type of web pages that don't have the extension (.html)?
I was thinking (For example) Y!A set "http://answers.yahoo.com/" as their 'default' page because there is no extension after (.com)
[and what's with the '/' at the end of the url, Some websites don't have that]

Also if you add "index" to the Y!A url, you get to the same page as the original. For some, I think it's "index.html"

Also some URLs are like this: "http://www.example.com/index?x=a2Bc&y=pQ8R"

I other words, can somebody please Summarize how web page URLs work for me?
Thanks In Advance!

 

[Aerivium]

A URL is sent to a DNS Server which can translate example.com to the ip address where this is located. Everythign after .com is passed to the web server when you request the page, it then uses the information after it to locate the file, usually by default it will return an index.html or index.php file if nothign is supplied, and usually the information after .com refers directly to directories and files on the server.
However,s ometimes if you have a url such as

www.randomsite.com/something/somethingelse

rather than these relating to directories containing an index.html file, it could also be the result of a htaccess file which redirects to a different page and uses the values after the domain (something and somethingelse in this case) to then build the page.


Anything after the ? are usually interpretted by the web server as GET parameters, these parameters are used to locate the web page by default and are usually passed to the page described before them so that it can receive information from the previous page that called.

This is how forms on web pages pass their information to the server, such as when you fill in the question box on here. Although most will use something called POST parameters which are not transferred as part of the url and so are not usually noticed by users.