How do I change the generic page name in the URL? Use a different file name or folder name?

Right now all my URLs show something like /Page-6/ at the end of the URL. The file names in Rapidweaver seem to default to Index.html or Index.php. My experience in the past was that “index” was to be used for the homepage.

If I want a more useful URL title is it best to change the folder name? By goal is just to make the URLs as short as possible. My old site used to have several slashes in it which I don’t think would be the case for a site that only goes about one level deep.


Try this…Remember…no spaces or special characters in folder names & index.html or index.php for file name.

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Okay, do I re-name both the folder and the file name there? And then presumably I should use the same name for the folder and filename? Or maybe it doesn’t matter?

To me it seems the folder naming becomes a bigger deal the more levels of folder hierarchy there is. In my case the site only goes one folder level deep.

Current best practices are to just set the folder name and leave the file name as “index.html” or “index.php”, as appropriate. When you do that, people only need to enter the folder in their browser. The web server will see that it’s a folder and not a file and then look in that folder for an index file. This eliminates the need for someone to type (or even know) the file extension. If you later add something to the page that requires PHP and changes the extension from html to php, all existing links will work.

As mentioned, it’s recommended to use lowercase, no spaces or special cases in the folder name.

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No…Name the folder something easy to remember what is there and all the file names should be index.html or index.php

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Leave the filename as index.html or index.php.

Also, use lower case letters and - or _ no spaces.

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I see that makes total sense. Good very simple.

I noticed something odd happening after I accidentally changed one of the page names. The file name is “page0” now and the iPad page shows up totally blank. The weird thing to me is that the computer and phone seem to show show the page just fine. https://www.retrospect90s.life/melon/page0.html

Would it be best to delete that page and folder on the server, rename the file to "index"and re-upload it?

I strongly urge you to keep your page names set to index.html or index.php. You should only need to update the folder name.

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Yeah it was a bit of an accident. All the other pages I only changed the folder name not the file name. Can I just change the name back to Index now and delete the other page that is there currently on the server?

Yes. Of course you can do that. :slight_smile:

Oh good, I just realized recently that the files don’t get over-written but they just add to what is in the folder already. As long as I remove the old page it seemed like there wouldn’t be confusion which page it should go to at all. Thanks

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