Question 1

What's the difference between a URL and a domain name?

Accepted Answer

A domain name is the human-friendly name (like example.com). A URL is the full address to a specific resource and can include the protocol, domain, path, and more (like https://example.com/products?id=123). In other words, the domain is one part of a URL.

Question 2

When should I use a URL?

Accepted Answer

Use a URL whenever you need to access or share a specific resource on the internet—such as a website page, a file download link, a cloud application endpoint, or an API route. In cloud computing, you commonly use URLs to reach web apps behind load balancers, call REST APIs, or access objects/files via HTTP(S) links.

Question 3

How much does a URL cost?

Accepted Answer

A URL itself is just an address format and has no direct cost. Costs usually come from what the URL points to (like a hosted website, API, or storage object) and from related items such as domain registration fees (if you own the domain), DNS hosting, TLS certificates, bandwidth/egress, and the compute or storage services serving the content.

URL

Definition

Real-World Example

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Cloud Provider Equivalencies

See URL in Action

GCP HTTP Load Balancer with MIG Backends

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