A Web site needn’t be all in one directory. You can use subdirectories (what graphical-environment types tend to call “folders” these days, but us old-time computerists prefer the more technical term) within your site. That’s a good way to separate your content in a logical, easily-maintainable way. If you just dump everything in one directory, it will get unwieldy very fast. Subdirectories can be used for the following purposes:

To separate the content of your site into logical sub-sites. If your site has sensible dividing-points, give each part a separate subdirectory. For instance, a corporate site may have one directory for marketing information on its products, another for technical-support information, and a third one for stockholder reports. A subdirectory can be divided in turn into sub-subdirectories at the next level: the marketing directory may have a subdirectory for each product line.

To put graphics in a separate directory from the HTML files. When you edit the HTML files and want to upload them all to the server, you won’t want to waste time by uploading the unchanged graphics over again, but you’ll have trouble separating them from the HTML when they’re all jumbled together.

Similarly, if you have sound files, Java applets, or other multimedia add-ons, use separate directories for each kind of content to keep things straight.

TIP: Once you decide on your directory structure and file names, don’t change them unless you have a really good reason!

Decide on the directory structure of your site early, when you first start working on it; it’s much easier to develop and maintain a site starting with a sensible structure than to try to change the structure of a site after it’s already evolved haphazardly. And if you change the file and directory names after the site’s already been up for a while, you’ll break any bookmarks, links, and search-engine entries that have been made to parts of your site other than the main home page. So come up with sensible names from the start, and try to avoid changing them thereafter unless absolutely necessary. Even a “trivial” change like changing all your .html files to .htm or vice-versa will break links, so avoid it!

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