Naming your file

index.html - default file name

The main page of a site (the one you tell people to go to first), should always have the filename "index.htm" or "index.html".

Webservers normally will serve the "index.htm" or "index.html" file if no filename is specified. They can be configured to serve other files as the default file, but index is the most common default across servers.

So if your main page is "index.html" you don't have to tell people that. You can just have them enter your domain (www.mydomain.com) or domain/user (www.crosswinds.net/~mysite) name to get your site.

If there is no "index.html" or other server specified default page, visitors will see a listing of all the files in your directory. If you want that, fine, but most of the time you won't. The server can be configured to return a "Directory Listing Denied" page instead, but that's so unfriendly. Just go ahead and name your main page "index.html" and put an "index.html" page as the main page in ech subdirectory or folder on your site.

Legal web page filenames

Your other web pages should have filenames that are related to their content.

They should end in .htm or .html (be consistent). There are other possibilities such as .php .shtm .asp .cfm etc, but these are pages that require special attention from your web server and are beyond what is covered in this class. If you need a different file extension you will know it.

Filenames can only have letters, numbers, - or _ in them. No spaces or other punctuation! You may be fooled into thinking that a filename with spaces works when you are looking at it on your own computer, but on the web it will not work.