\nThe first page you need to make when you make your web site is the index file. This is the web page where a visitor will be greeted when they key in your web site domain in their browser. You may say this is the entry point to start browsing your web site though it may not necessary be the first page a visitor will visit if they find your web site through a search engine. If they came in via the web site address that you supplied, then this index file will the first page where your visitors will drop in to your web site.\n<\/p>\n
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\nBasically this filename in its complete form of file+extension will be index.html. Why use the .html extension? Well actually you can use other form of extension like .htm. However it always better to use the usual commonly used extension for consistency and thus the .html will be the standard extension to use.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat about the other form of extension like .php, .shtml, or even .asp? These are rather special and refer to web pages that are coded to run on server side as oppose to client side. What it means is that to the visitor the pages are formed and created before the pages are displayed on the visitors’ browser. While client side requires the visitor’s computer to render the web page code on his PC before it is displayed on his browser. If this seems rather complicated then just leave this concept on the table for the time being.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhenever you type in a domain name eg example.com the first thing the browser will look for is the file called the index.html. This is also true if you have a subfolder eg example.com\/subfolder, then the first file it will look for in the subfolder would also be an index.html file. You could actually control and modify which file a browser to look for by modifying the htaccess server file in the folder, but basically the main file a browser will automatically look is the index.html file.\n<\/p>\n
\nAdvance technique to set the default file other than index.html
\nInclude this command in .htacces file:\n<\/p>\n
\n# Set the default handler.\nDirectoryIndex index.html\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n\nIf your new index file is called hello.php, then change the above index.html to hello.php. So when someone logs in to your web site they will end up on hello.php.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nUsually it is prudent to have an index.html file for each subfolder within your web site. This would prevent visitors from accidentally viewing all your files and folders within that subfolder. However there is another way to prevent visitors from viewing the subfolders by preventing access using the .htaccess file should you prefer not to create an index.html file for every subfolder that you create in your web site.\n<\/p>\n
\n\nTechnique to prevent visitors from looking at any of your subfolder in your web site. Include this command in your .htaccess file:\n<\/p>\n
\n# Don't show directory listings in a directory.\nOptions -Indexes\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSo this wraps up the explanation about index.html, the first file that a browser will load up whenever a website address is keyed in the address bar.\n<\/p>\n
HTML tutorial with video<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- Learning HTML basics<\/a>\n
- HTML Text formatting<\/a>\n
- More HTML Text formatting<\/a>\n
- Adding images to your website<\/a>\n
- Making links and anchors when you make your own web site<\/a>\n
- Creating tables, rows and columns in your web site<\/a>\n<\/ul>\n
More related HTML tutorials<\/b><\/p>\n
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- Learning HTML codes for building a web page<\/a>\n
- Lesson 1 – The Basic HTML Tag<\/a>\n
- Lesson 2 – Create a website page<\/a>\n
- Lesson 3 – Text formatting tags<\/a>\n
- Lesson 4 – Aligning the paragraph text<\/a>\n
- Lesson 5 – Making bullet list and numbered list<\/a>\n
- Lesson 6 – Create tables in your website<\/a>\n<\/ul>\n
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- Index.html file – first page when you make your website<\/a>\n
- HTML extension vs PHP, ASP, SHTML, PHTML etc<\/a>\n<\/ul>\n