Site Building

5.1. Concept: Paths, Aliases, and URLs for Drupal 8, 9, 10, and 11

What is a URL?

URL is the abbreviation for "Uniform Resource Locator", which is the page’s address on the web. It is the "name" by which a browser identifies a page to display. In the example "Visit us at example.com.", example.com is the URL for the home page of your website. Users use URLs to locate content on the web.

What is a Path?

A path is the unique, last part of the URL for a specific function or piece of content. For example, for a page whose full URL is http://example.com/node/7, the path is node/7.

Here are some examples of paths you might find in your site:

  • node/7
  • taxonomy/term/6
  • admin/content/comment
  • user/login
  • user/3

What is an Alias?

The core software has a feature called "URL Alias" that allows you to provide a more understandable name to the content. So, if you have an "About Us" page with the path node/7, you can set up an alias so that your visitors will see it as http://www.example.com/AboutUs. The core Path module, which supports URL aliasing, provides this functionality.

Related topics

Attributions

Adapted by Diána Lakatos at Pronovix from "URL aliases", and "URL paths" copyright 2000-2024 by the individual contributors to the Drupal Community Documentation

Drupal User Guide