Expression® Web Design Blog - Naming Your Web Pages

Naming Your Web Pages

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Usually when you start out, you need to have a "home" page. This page is usually something like

index.htm
index.html
index.shtm
index.shtml
index.phtm
index.phtml
index.asp
index.aspx
index.cfm
index.php
default.htm
default.html
default.shtm
default.shtml
default.phtm
default.phtml
default.asp
default.aspx
default.cfm
default.php

Most servers will be set up to show one of these pages when you enter your domain name. If not, contact your hosting provider for more information or check their support / knowledge base.

More Web Page Naming Conventions

When working in Frontpage, it is very easy to use a space in the name of the web page. Don't do it though. Don't use a space in the file name. This will be translated to something else in the URL and might cause more problems. Consider using a underscore (_) or dash (-).

Also, I would keep the file names lowercase. On *NIX servers, they are case sensitive - meaning that image.JPG is not the same as image.jpg. This sometimes will cause some problems if you link to aboutus.html but you named your web page AboutUs.html. On Windows servers, it is not case sensitive, which is one less thing to worry about.