What is Backtracking?

A good way to find out about the organization where a site is located is by using the domain name of the site. You can "backtrack" to the domain name to get to the main home page for the site. For example, starting from this page:

http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/instruction/tutorials/refine/web/backtrack.htm

Remove everything after the third slash:

http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/

This is often enough to find out who the "sponsor" of your original URL is, and in this case, you would be at the OSU Libraries homepage. However, if this URL has more than one full stop, you may be able to backtrack farther. Remove the first "word" of the URL, including the full stop:

http://oregonstate.edu/

Now you're at the OSU homepage. OSU "sponsors" the OSU Libraries, which in turn "sponsor" this page.

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