New webhost has "public html" folder instead of just domain name

[Boulder90]

Will this have any negative effects on ranking and overall placement? My previous web host had just a forward slash and then proceeded with the domain name folders when accessing my data using FTP. This site has the forward slash, and then "public_html", and then the domain folders inside that folder.

Bad?

Thanks for any tips.

[tedster]

You'll find that the files you place in that folder DO get served with just your domain name, and don't begin with /public/. It's a way of giving you other server space that is not part of your http offering.

[g1smd]

Upload a small text file, called simply "test.txt" or somesuch, and see that the file resolves at example.com/test.txt just fine.

[wheel]

perhaps to clarify - where you place your files on the server, and where they appear on your domain name in a browser aren't neccessarily related.

Most likely what your host has done is pointed the base of your website/domain at your public_html folder (that's why it's called public). So externally, you won't see that folder. This allows you to place files outside of public_html that aren't accessible from the web (vaguely speaking).

[Wlauzon]

Don't all Apache & UNIX shared servers have that?

[g1smd]

Sometimes the root of your FTP is also the public root of your site, especially on free hosts, etc.

Most good hosts will allow you to go above the public HTML root in your FTP view, but not all allow this.

[Boulder90]

Thank you for the comments.

[wheel]

Don't all Apache & UNIX shared servers have that?

Most but not all. It's merely convention, and an artificial one. For multiple users it's a good way to have your 'web' folders in a public html folders, then your scripts in a cgi folder outside of publichtml.

I'm the only one on my server so for example I don't have a public html folder. Much of my directories are split out by CMS's instead, so I've got a wordpress folder with all my wordpress sites as subfolders under that, and so on.