Expected Files on the Server

Are there any more?

[Jeremy_H]

By default, there are several basic files that need to be on the server. While they are not required, they are sometimes expected by either the browser or bot.

index.html
robots.txt
favicon.ico
.htaccess

Are there any other files like this?

[physics]

.htaccess is not viewable by web browsers or spiders, it's an Apache config file:
[webmasterworld.com...]
So it's not actually necessary unless you want to put some commands in it.

[choster]

There's nothing special about index.html. Depending on its configuration, the server will by default return a file, which might be default.asp, home.cfm, index.jsp, etc. If none of the preferred directory indexes are available, the server will either return a list of all the visible files (if it's a "real" directory on the server) or an error.

Similarly, .htaccess would not be applicable, for instance, on a Windows server.

[Jeremy_H]

Thank you both for your feedback.

I know on different servers things differ a bit differently. I'm just curious if I'm missing out on any other "basic" files that would benefit my site.

It seemed when I learned about index.html files everything was fine. Then I learned about robots.txt and how search engines used them. I was like "Wow! I've never even heard of them", yet that didn’t stop the search engines from looking for it. Same thing with favicon.ico and so on.

Based on your answers, I'm guessing there’s no other basic files I'm missing.

Thanks.

[jdMorgan]

Two more, though a bit obscure:

/w3c/p3p.xml if you have a compact privacy policy (see w3c.org)
/labels.rdf if you have a content-rating for your site (see icra.org)

Jim