Are URLs Case Sensitive?
A URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is a technical term for what is more commonly known as a website address. In a Web browser, the URL field is where a user can type or paste an address such as wisegeek.com. While domain names are not case-sensitive, the rest of the URL might be. In our example, this would be everything that follows “.com” as in wisegeek.com/are-urls-case-sensitive.htm. Every website is hosted on a server (computer) that runs 24/7 to provide constant access to the websites it hosts. Servers running Windows operating systems disregard case in URLs, interpreting identical spelling as being the same address. This server would ‘see’ wisegeek.com/are-urls-case-sensitive.htm and wisegeek.com/Are-URLs-Case-Sensitive.htm as being the same webpage. However, a server running a Linux or UNIX operating system would interpret the two examples as pointing to two different page addresses. This could be a problem for some webmasters. For example, let’s assume “Jack” has designed a we
Technically, yes. You should always be consistent in your use of upper or lower case in your URLs. Even in cases where the upper and lower case versions go to the same resource, you’re imposing an unnecessary burden on browsers that need to retrieve and cache two copies of the same thing if they go to two variants of the same URL. As far as whether you can vary the case and still get the same resource, this depends. The protocol and hostname are not case sensitive, so you can write http://www.dan.info/ or HTTP://www.dan.info/ and they’ll work identically. However, the directory and filenames may be case sensitive depending on what operating system the server is running under (UNIX is case-sensitive, while Windows isn’t). Fragment names are case-sensitive. So be careful to match the directory, file, and anchor names in your links to the case of the actual files and anchors.
The short answer, yes. As of now, new registrations will only allow you to signup with all lowercase letters. However, you should know that your directories, files, and images are case sensitive. Index.html is not the same as index.html Image.jpg is not the same as image.jpg This is a common mistake when trying to code links or images on your pages. Please double check your case sensitivity when you’re troubleshooting your pages.
