Okay, let's see how this works:

http: - HyperText Transfer Protocol:
This tells your browser that the document contains text, links and graphics. You may also come across ftp (file transfer protocol) as a prefix instead. This alerts your browser to identify the site as an ftp site that allows you to access and download files from an ftp server. FTP is typically used at places with lots of download files and the "FTP" site is more structured for download files and access from an "FTP software program.

Another prefix you may encounter is gopher, developed at the University of Minnesota (The Gopher is the school's mascot). Gopher uses a menu-based system to tunnel through the Internet. The World Wide Web has made Gopher virtually obsolete, but there are times where you will run into a Gopher. A Gopher URL would look like this: gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu, and usually will lead to a text-only site.

// - Directories separators:
Folder and file names, just like as in Windows or DOS. Kind of like separating each part of your mailing address on each line for the postman.
address.htm
guides
www.solvnet.net

Except that we say first go to this computer, then the directory(s) and then the page.

solvnet.net - The Domain's name:
This is the name chosen by or allocated to the person or company that owns the site. This name is kept in a hudge registry that associates the domain name with the actual computer address. Sometimes you will see a URL with the actual computer address like: 205.127.45.128 , Before domain names that's how we remembered someones website. Not much fun!

/guides/ - The sub-directory or folder:
This is the name of the folder or sub-directory where the page is located in on the server.

address - The Name:
Here we have the actual name of the page.

.html or .htm - Hyper Text Mark-up Language:
Finally we have the suffix html which tells the browser the type of coding the site is written in. You may also come across .htm here too.

If you just want reach the "source" of the document, in this case our home page, you can remove the syntax beyond the .net. So all you'll end up with is what is shown here http://www.solvnet.net.

As browser technology advances we'll eventually find ourselves never bothering with this sometimes awkward syntax. Even now, Netscape allows you to just type in "sesamestreet" for example and you're magically whisked away to http://www.sesamestreet.com. Unfortunately this only works with Web-sites with the ".com" extension. Microsoft explorer uses the http and .html or .htm as standard default settings permitting you to omit them when entering a URL.