Just starting to really get into cpanel and how it operates. In the beginning it just 'blew my mind'. Now, it just 'rattles it' a bit.

There are lots of things I need to sort out but right now I am wondering about directories; subdomain's; files ... what's the difference?

Also, I am seeing references to placing files into your root directory ... where would the root be located in yourmaindomain.com; and what would be considered the root in a subdomain example subdomain.yourmaindomain.com?

Thanxs

Domain names are basically a way to easily reference a remote server. A server in turn, maps domain names to a folder when the site files are stored. The folder that holds files for yourdomain.com is the root folder or root directory. Depending on how your site is setup, it may be called "public_html".

A subdomain is separate section on the main domain. Subdomains are mapped to their own root folders. With cPanel hosting, subdomain root folders appear inside the "public_html" folder.

The easiest way to get accustomed to your directory structure is to login with your FTP software and browse around.

Hope this helps

Great explanation by Coder.

As Coder has said the root directory for your domain is normally called "public_html". If you upload a index.html/index.php file inside this folder it will show when you visit yourdomain.com.

If you want to create a sub-domain (Im sure you know this) then simple go to the sub-domains section inside cPanel and create the subdomain of your choice. For this example lets call it "reviews.yourdomain.com". Now head back to file manager or your FTP program and view your "public_html" (root) folder. Inside this directory you should see a folder named "reviews". This is the sub-domain you just created. Inside this folder is where you will store files you would like to appear on that sub-domain.

If you upload a index.html/index.php file to this new sub-domain directory (reviews folder inside public_html) you will see this page show when you visit the sub domain reviews.mydomain.com. If you would like to upload a page to show as reviews.mydomain.com/webhosting all you would need to do is create the page and save it as "webhosting" then upload it to the "reviews folder".

Also As you said cPanel is really scarey at first but after a while it's quite easy to understand. The best thing is about 70% of cPanel you won't ever need to know or use. I would say the average user will only ever use email accounts, file manager, sub-domains, redirects and Fantastico.

I hope I helped a bit

__________________

Thanks sequencehosting and Coder, your posts helped a lot. But here is where I am confused.

I have BlueHost with cPanel I know how to set up a sub domain, but what if I don't want the xxxx.mydomain.com, how do I get from there to mydomain.com/xxxx and then how do I do this if I want several pages i.e. mydomain.com/xxxx1, mydomain.com/xxxx2, mydomain.com/xxxx3 etc

Or mydomain.com/xxxx/xxxx1, mydomain.com/xxxx/yyyy, mydomain.com/xxxx/zzzz, etc

Can this be done? If so how can I do this?

Hope some of you can figure out my jibberish.

Thanks in advance,

Darwin in Albuquerque

If you don't want subdomains, don't create them Instead, create folders in your root directory.

If I created a folder called "blog" in my root directory, I would view it by visiting:

Creating a folder called "links" inside the "blog" folder would lead to a URL like:

Think of it like your regular computer. You can create folders inside other folders. That is all that is happening on your server and the path to the correct folder is reflected in the URL.

Hope this helps

I asked this same question on this forum about a year ago.

So in your main directory (public_html) you can also create folders as well as files. Give it a try now. Go to public_html and create a folder. This will now be mydomain.com/foldername If you would like for example mydomain.com/reviews/hosting.html you would simple add a folder inside public_html called reviews and inside that folder add the hosting.html file.

The same thing can be done with sub domains. Unlike a sub-domain you will not need to do anything to create a folder in cPanel. Just simply FTP a folder to your public_html directory. You can also create a folders and files inside file manager.

Here is a step by step guide on how to do this:

- Login to cPanel, scroll down to files and click on file manager.

- Select web root. To make sure it takes you to the root directory go ahead and click public_html on the left

- Now click on new folder to the top left of file manager and name it what you like.

- Next double click the folder you created

- Lastly create a new .html file of your choice.

Now your URL structure to this file will be mydomain.com/foldername/filename.html

--

Sorry for any bad spelling I have been working hard today

__________________

Thanks again sequencehosting, that was very helpful. I think I can figure that out now.

For clarification so when I set that up as you explained without creating a sub domain, I can just go to mydomain (the domain I want the /folder in, then add an image folder to it and then upload my images and then where do I upload my index.html file?

And when I do that it won't effect my main domain index.html, right? because it is a seperate folder just like another website would be. Did I understand this correctly?

Thanks again,

Darwin in Albuquerque

No problem.

You have lost me a bit here. Are you asking where abouts to upload your images/if you need to upload your images to each folder?

-

Yes that is correct it will not effect your index.html file. You can create as little or as many folders as you want.

__________________

Thanks again sequencehosting you are not only good but fast. You have helped me so much today, if you ever come through Albuquerque, I will spring for your favorite beverage.

It's hard to explain stuff when I really don't know the lingo of file structure.
so I got my subfolder in there, and its empty, so now I need to upload a tom of images, so I have to create an images folder, to upload my images to.

Do i have to create another folder in that sub folder to upload my index.html file or will there be another public_html file automatically set up in that sub folder to upload my index.html file to.

I hope I made this a little clearer. Like in my main domain I just loaded my images in the image file, then I just made sure I was in public_html and loaded the rest of the files including the index.html, so where I am confused is where do I upload the index.htm; and the other files that are not in the image folder or do I just upload them to the sub folder or do I have to creat another folder inside the subfolder to upload all the other files with the index.html files?

I am probably making this harder than it really is. But I have never worked with sub folders, except with SBI and they make it really easy and when I got to Blue Host to set this up, I was lost, as you can tell.

Thanks again soooo much, I owe you big, sequencehosting!!


Darwin in Albuquerque

Not a problem at all. That’s very nice of you thank you.

Yeah I understand there is allot to take in and since posting this thread I’m sure you understand allot more than you did.

My first question is do you mean sub-domain or sub-folder? They will both look the same inside file manager but the sub-domain would have been created inside cPanel. Secondly do you want to display these images on a page? Or do you just wish to upload these images to that folder?

Most people including me will have a folder called images inside the “public_html” directory and upload every image to this folder. You will not need to upload images to every folder you create.

The public_html is only a folder which will contain your website. It will never need to be created again. Ok I see what your saying. It depends what you would like to do.

For example mydomain.com/reviews is just a folder. This is an example from my own website https://www.sequencehosting.com/images/ what I linked to is a folder called “images” inside my directory. You can see there is files inside this directory but a web page does not show. If I wanted a web page to show by visiting this link I would need to add a index.html file inside the “images” folder.

Think of the public_html directory as the folder of your main domain (domain.com). Since this is a folder the index.html is needed so when you view (domain.com) it shows the index.html page. It is exactly the same for the folder but some folders will not need a index.html file because the folder is just used to store files. For example the link I posted is to my images folder. This folder is used to store my images, visitors to my site will never need to go to sequencehosting.com/images so I do not have an index.html file inside that folder.

So what files are you adding inside this folder? Also how would you rather structure your website?

If you have a home page displaying articles you may wish to create a folder called articles and link directly to each article from the home page in this case you do not need a index.html file inside the articles folder.

Using that same example your home page is displaying articles you may wish to link to yourdomain.com/articles to display a web page showing your most popular articles. In this case you will need to add a index.html file in the articles folder.

---

Index.html = The web page for the folder.

Yourdomain.com is the index.html file inside your public_html

If you have a folder called articles. The index.html file inside the articles folder will be the web page when you visit

Yourdomain.com/articles

Above I have tried many ways of explaining it. The best way of understanding it is to look at my explaination underneath the ---

__________________

I know I am thick as a brick, thanks for being patient and explaining it so well.

I think I got it now, so here goes, let me know if I got it or not.

I have a 3 domains and this domain I am working on is a capture page so I don't want to mess with that. I want to use this domain to have several landing pages for an affiliate product to do split testing and, it is all the same product, just different landing pages, to see which ones work best.

So I want this mydomain.com/firstlandingpage, mydomain.com/secondlandingpage, etc.

So I go into my File manager click on the domain I want this in which is here
http://www.affiliateprogramsu.com/regcure1/ it says "Forbidden" I think because I have nothing in there, when I click on it in my FTP it's empty, so now I understand so far, so I just loaded the whole file and which brought with it an image folder, the index.html and the other files, that cleared up a lot.
Then I just refreshed the page and it still gives me the 403 Forbidden.

What did I do wrong?

Thanks.

Darwin

Not at all I think everyone on this forum has asked these questions before (I certainly know I have)

It certainly seems like you have the right idea now.

If the file/page didn't exist it would bring up a 404 error not a 303. A 303 error means forbiden. I will be the first to admit I do not know the exact fix for this problem but from what I have just read it could be your web host.

"This URL should fail with a 403 error saying "Forbidden: You don't have permission to access /accounts/grpb/B1394343/ on this server". This is because our CheckUpDown Web site deliberately does not want you to browse directories - you have to navigate from one specific Web page to another using the hyperlinks in those Web pages. This is true for most Web sites on the Internet - their Web server has "Allow directory browsing" set OFF."

This may be what is happening. My advice would be to add this code this code some where on your index.html for affiliateprogramsu.com

Save the file hit refresh on your browser and try the link.

Also is this a folder called regcure1? If it is you will need a index.html file inside the regcure1 folder to view that link. It could also be happening if you do not have files inside the folder.

__________________

I just wanted to jump in here again and Thank sequencehosting for helping me get my sub domain problem taken care of I couldn't have done it with his/her help.


Thanks again sequencehosting you really helped me, I really learned a lot from you in a couple days.



Darwin in Albuquerque.

No problem, glad I could help

__________________

Wow, Darwin, we have some things in common. I am with Blue Host too. A Cpanel was new and confusing to me also. I also have three domains with them. I usually call their 24 hour free support service. When I first joined it was not too helpful. When I called back for more questions it became easier to understand.