What does netloc mean?

netloc is a term commonly used to denote the network location component extracted from a URL. This encompasses the domain (or IP address) and an optional port number. In the URL structure, netloc sits between the scheme (e.g., http or https) and the path (the resource path component).

For example, in the URL http://www.example.com:80/path:

• http is the scheme,
• www.example.com:80 is the netloc,
  • where www.example.com is the domain,
  • 80 is the port number.
• /path is the resource path.

In Python's urllib.parse module, you can utilize the urlparse() function to parse a URL and obtain the netloc. This proves highly useful for scenarios such as network programming and web scraping, as developers can initiate network requests or process data based on the domain and port number.