Keeping it Tidy

[freddieb]

I've been doing some work for other Webbies and was amazed at how disorganized their files were. One guy did have a lot of different folders, but had about 60 to 80 assorted files in the site root. The other guy had EVERYTHING in the site root.

Organize your files. All I have in my site root is the index file and a robots.txt file.

What do others here do? How do you organize your files?

[USALUG]

My sites are kind of like a pyramid.... at the top... all the html files in that "level" and the next levels down.... are in seperate folders, as they are usually seperate topics... if that makes sense....

ftp into my sites and you'll see pretty much the same things......

index.php
robot.txt
.htaccess
style.css

and up to 40-50 pages of "top level" site pages.... usually the pages that are "indexed" on the main page.. pages from these top level page link to folders for more info....

FOLDERS INCLUDE

images/
backgrounds/
cgi-bin/
admin/
stats/
files/
includes/

MISC other sub folders as needed for more content.

May not be the prettiest.....but people can usually figure it out quick :)

[Luckenbach]

I keep all my files in the root directory, but it's only about 700 files so it's easy to keep them organized. To me, the main reason to have separate directories is to allow you to have files with identical filenames. But this may be because I've been programming so long and the old organize your files by using the alphabet is something I'm used to.

Some people think keeping all your files in the root helps your search engine rankings. I have no idea if this is true, but I get fine rankings.

[DrTandem1]

700 files in one directory? I can't believe it would be easy to find anything. If you don't have a problem with that, more power to you. Personally, I like the HTML files in one directory and the image files in a different directory. The reason is, that is how I have them organized on my computer. Of course, certain files need their own directory, such as CGI or password-protected areas.

I also find it easier to do housekeeping. There really is no reason to keep unused files on the server. Think of the poor guy who may inherit your filing system. YOU know where everything is, but they don't. I think it may speed up the site, if you separate images from code, especially on a large site. Why should the server have to run through hundreds of files when it can jump to a selected directory and only search through a few dozen?

[Luckenbach]

I'm really not concerned about how long it takes a server to look through 700 files, servers are pretty fast.
My files are organized, all image files begin with pic, all boats for sale begin with s, etc.
It's like having 26 directories, each group of files starts with a different letter so they are all grouped together and a snap for me to find anything. I don't think it is a better way than using directories, it probably shows my age, lol. Maybe we had directories back in 69 when I started programming, I can't remember. But I do remember keeping things as short as possible so each instruction would fit on one punch card!

[DrTandem1]

I'm not trying to be offensive, but that sounds like filing apple under "f" for fruit. I understand how it works, but I also think you are missing the point. There is evidence that suggests that search engines also look at file names of pages. You have stated that this is not a concern for you, but it would be for most.

I guess the question most would ask is why look for the "p" section for an image when you could simply name an image with a descriptive name. If I'm looking for a specific images out of hundreds, it is much easier if the file name is descriptive of the image. To put "p" in front of an image is a bit redundant as most image files are GIFs or JPEGs. Again, if it works for you, go for it. I'm not trying to change your mind, just showing you how most would find it problematic.

[cyanide]

interesting topic

Well, a bit of an organizational freak, so site directory looks a little like this:

images/ ...
imagesOrig/ ...
pics/ ...
includes/ style.css, includes.php. header.php, footer.php, config.php
about/ ...
products/ ...
services/ ...
index.php
.htaccess
sitemap.php
+ any stray pages

If a site doesn't have many pages, then all html pages will be kept in the root. I think if the site was huge, I might have a hard time with them all in the root, but ultimately whatever works for you .

[grease]

I tried many different approaches. I think the real issue is which approach results in less production time and less mistakes. If a site is less than 200 files organization really is not that difficult if you are naming your files properly. Personally I throw all my pics into a images folder and all HTML files in the root. A typical page for me only has one CSS file, so I just toss that in the root too. Most FTP programs sort alphabetically and by file type. If you are using this system and still having trouble finding a file, then you should consider glasses :)

Grease

[DrTandem1]

Exactly.

[wclew]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

I think it may speed up the site, if you separate images from code, especially on a large site. Why should the server have to run through hundreds of files when it can jump to a selected directory and only search through a few dozen?

Is this just a theory? Or can you supply info that suggests this is true? I've never seen anywhere, but I theorized exactly opposite of you. I've never designed a large site, always under 40 pages and usually under 20 pages, so I figured why make the server look in another directory and just put the images in the root directory. I thought this would be faster. Am I wrong?

[DrTandem1]

It may be an insignificant delay, however, the server must still run the search for the requested file. It has no way of magically picking out the desired file. It would be the same if I asked you to look up a number in the phone book. If I asked you for a listing that was very unique, you would probably locate it quickly. However, if I asked you for Johnson in New York City,on 33rd Street, it would probably take you a while longer. Now, if I told you specifically what page the listing could be found, this would cut your search time dramatically. The same is true of directories.

Another example of this is having to defrag your hard drive. Imagine your hard drive is a liquor store. After months of haphazardly stocking the shelves, things would be fairly disorganized. Maybe someone requests a Bombay gin and a bottle of Beefeater gin. One is on one side of the store and the other is on the opposite side of the store. If both were located in the gin section, they would be retrieved much more quickly. This is in essence what a defrag accomplishes. It organizes associated files.

To prove this, search for a specific file that you know exists on your computer's hard drive. First have it search for it looking on the entire drive and see how long the search takes. Try the search again with another file, but only search the exact folder where it resides. I think the search will be much quicker when you narrow the avenues. If a server's root directory has a massive amount of files, it will take longer to retrieve the requested file than it would, if the files were broken down into directories.

The fact that you can put all of your site's files into one directory doesn't mean that you should. I believe that if you think about this, it makes much more sense to organize them by file types. More so for the human than for the server. I think it a bit odd to name every image file so that the first letter is "p" for picture. It's so much easier just to put it in a directory of its own. You can even name the directory "p". Isn't it easier naming one folder "p" than every file of that type "p*"?

[carbonize]

I personally use a different directory for each sub category. If nothing else it helps me with the php include for the sub menu as well as some other PHP stuff.

[btg]

Just to add to the topic,I have 4 web sites running at present, 3 of them have sub folders and only the index files are in the root dir.
my latest web site has all the files in the root dir, for the reason i wish to experiment, if search engines like Inkatomi who profess they only search the index.html which is in the root dir, when spidering will Inkatomi also pick up on the rest of my pages because they are included in the root?
We have to try everyway, to get results, so this is my test for www.online-shopping-2u.com my newest web site.
All the best to all.
Janet

[DrTandem1]

Janet,

Do you mean that there is only one file, index.html, in the root folder and that the subsequent pages are in different a different directory for the three sites? Also, I'm not sure how Inktomi crawls a site. I couldn't find anything in their documentation that says that they only search the index.html file. From what I could gather, they hit the root directory, then crawl the entire site.

Good luck with your experiment. Let us know what happens.

[freddieb]

As far as I'm aware, unless you stipulate in your robots.txt that a folder/files should be disallowed, the S/E robots will crawl the whole site.

[btg]

Hi,
Inkatomi is a paid for inclusion search engine,unless you pay lots of money out for each page to be included, then for the basic insertion cost of just the index page, you will only have your index.html spidered by them.
This is true of a few other pay for inclusion search engines.
This is why i am trying this experiment, to see if all files in the root directory are spidered and not just the index page, hopefully not only by Inkatomi but by other similar search engines.
These results will only show up on a fresh web site, because as you all know, after a period of time the more popular your site becomes then all search engines will spider all your pages, even if you did not use their pay for inclusion.
By the way if anybody is interested, i added my third web site only a few weeks ago with free submissions and have found the search engines mainly google are only picking up on the content written within the page,this means my title, description and metatags for this site might as well not exist.
All the best
janet
www.online-shopping-2u.com

[matauri]

Keeping all your files in the root may be acceptable if you only have a small site, but on a large site, its madness. I go along the lines of Cyanide & USALUG's organization. I used to have about 3000 files, now I think its down to a more manageable less than 2000 (haven't counted lately), if they didnt go in their sub-categories I would have no hope of managing them.

Now I am running Apache I have found it reduces the amount of files on the server dramatically. Best addition I could have done. It also gives me the chance to do the housecleaning before anything gets uploaded.


Cindy

[DrTandem1]

Cindy,

What were you running before Apache, Windows? If so, what is it about Apache that you need fewer files? I too agree with your method of filing.


Janet-

After reading Inktomi's documentation, I think they still spider your entire site, but they just index the URLs submitted. I believe this is to be sure your site is what it says it is. It will probably make little difference in which directory the files are listed as long as they can follow a link to them.

Also, I have found that the title tag is extremely important to Google. It must also be important to Inktomi, because their documentation says to search for your page's title in quotes on one of their portal sites to determine whether or not it is listed.

The closer your title tag is to the top of your page the better. So, it should be the first tag in the <head> section. I think I visited your newest site mentioned in one of your posts. Was it done in frames? I didn't look at the source code, but that seems to stick in my mind. If it was, that could be a problem.

[freddieb]

I have read that very few search engines look at the Meta keywords now, instead looking at the Meta description and weighing that against the text content in the page.

[CLBridges]

Like Matauri, Cyanide and USALUG, I also organize my files in subdirectories. Not just to help keep track on large sites but it used to (supposedly) boost search results. This was a long time ago, back when using keywords in directory and file names was thought to be an SEO tactic. I'm talking WAAAY back. Does this setup look familiar to anyone?

directory name:/play_poker/
html file name: play_poker.html
image file name: play_poker.jpg
img alt text: Play Poker
page title: Play Poker
meta description tag: Play Poker
meta keyword tag: play poker

This "doorway" page would consist of ONLY a poker image linked to the real poker page and a "Play Poker" text link to the real poker page.

A page designed this way was found to be 100% relevant when searching for the phrase "play poker" on AltaVista, back when they were Yahoo's search affiliate. But they caught on to it after awhile.. hehe. The search results were also updated immediately, meaning you could change your page, submit it via AltaVista's Add URL page and then check your placement again. Tweak-submit-check, tweak-submit-check.. until you reached #1.

It wasn't until after I joined here that I learned using keywords in directory and file names (and domain names, from what I've been reading) doesn't give any kind of boost and quite possibly never did.

Guess I just got used to doing it that way. My computer setup is the same with games installed under a games folder, etc. instead of everything under "Program Files".

Carrie**

[Luckenbach]

I must apologize. When I said I had 700 files all in the root directory I was incorrect. I meant to say I had 700 html files in the root directory. I also have about 3,000 image files, also in the root directory.
Someone said this is madness, but I have no problems with it and can find any file in seconds.
I am NOT saying that this is a good way to do it, but it is possible and works fine for me. It did take some care with naming the files, obviously.
I did try having a few other directories, but I rarely use them, and I'm not counting the files in them in the total.

[DrTandem1]

Carrie, I think you are forgetting about Google's search for Images. This leads me to suspect that Google still indexes file names. I don't know how much weight they carry, but it is strong evidence.

[DarrenPWS]

I operate in a boring way:

I have the index.htm page and I have a list of folders, each named after the appropriate section (eg. products).
In there I have the pages for that area.

I also have a folder called "layout" in which all of my images etc. are located in their own catagorized folders (eg. header, bg, img) etc.

I also have folders named "css" and "js" for the external css/js files.

That is my way of doing things - interesting topic!

DD