title: How can I match an optional word with RegEx and not use backreferences?
body: <p>I'm a little confused with the conflicting nature of backreferences and optional strings.</p>
  
  <p>Say I want to find a URL, and optionally have http:// at the front, I'd do <code>(http:\/\/)...</code>, right? But would that not create a backreference I could access with \1 or $1 or whatever?</p>