Choosing Names for Web Folders and Files

Most Web servers are configured to look for a default file named index.html in each directory. Such a file can be accessed without specifying the filename in the uniform resource locator (URL). Instead, only the server name and path is required. If you name the top-level page in your www directory index.html, then people can access that page using the following URL:

http://oak.conncoll.edu/~your_login_name

where the variable your_login_name is replaced with your actual login name.

When choosing names for Web folders and files, select names that are easy for people to type. For example,

my-page.html

is easier to type than

my_page.html

because the underscore character ( _ ) requires the use of the Shift key on the keyboard. Some Web servers cannot translate spaces in URLs, so you should avoid using spaces in names of folders and files. In addition, some Web servers treat URLs as case-sensitive. To avoid problems, use all lowercase letters when naming folders and files.