files not in www, they are in root

[storyline]

i had a social networking site built for me by a programmer. he built it in python with twisted web.

my question is this, the main home page had lots of text and key phrases that i put there so the site will rank for those key phrases[i have done other sites in html the same way and over time the site would rank in google and yahoo with those keyphrases]

problem is, the pages DO NOT live in the www directory. because of the way he built the site, the pages are at the root level in the projects folder.

so the question is, will the site still get ranked for those key phrases even though the pages are not in the www folder? would the search engines see an empty site? would the search engines know to go to the project folder in the root for indexing?

[londrum]

the directory name is decided by your server set-up. the search engines don't care (or even know) what it is.

the usual ones are 'www', 'html' and 'public_html', but it could just as easily be 'projects' or even 'bananas'.

as long the server knows where to look for the stuff, that's all that matters.

[edit]
actually... are you saying that your root directory is called 'projects', or is the 'projects' directory actually within the 'www' directory? because that would be different...

[storyline]

ok that's good to know. aparently, the site does not use apache, so we have to kill apache first, then boot the site. i had to get a vps because shared hosting servers generally don't allow root access. and i don't mean root access at the domain level, i mean root access at the server level.

i was on joyent at first and i may have to go back because the vps i have with the current host is always getting rebooted for some reason and when apache kicks in, it kills my site. i then have to putty in and boot the site with a commmand

do you recommend a better root level server for less than $40 per month?

[storyline]

i have to log in to the root level of the server. there are no files in www or public html or any of these. they are deep in the root of the server like where the python scripts are or something like that.

so if google sends a spider to the domain, it will know where to look to find the files? the domain has been indexed, but none of my key phrases are coming up after 6 months. the last site i did in html, the keyphrases are ranking #1 in yahoo and google.

does having the site in python somehow make it less rankable by google?

i was thinking of having the site rebuilt in php and html so the files can sit in the www folder and then i don't have to spend $40 a month for a virtual private server or expensive root hosting with joyent.

[g1smd]

The file structure inside your server isn't that important.

What URL is the content at?

Is it example.com/ or is it example.com/projects/ instead?

Spiders deal in URLs. They don't see where on the server the content resides, and they don't care.

[londrum]

the type of server you are using shouldn't really affect your ranking.

spiders are just like normal visitors. they get served the same stuff as we do (...but they don't bother downloading all the images and stuff like that, of course).

so as long as your homepage comes up like normal when you visit your domain, you shouldn't have anything to worry about it.

[storyline]

ok so the deal is that my site does not use the apache server. we have to shut down apache then run a script to boot the site and the server the site uses [NOT SURE WHAT it is]

anyway, the files are not in the www folder. however, the url is still www.company.com so when someone logs onto www.company.com the site comes up. it's all very confusing to me. i wish they used php or something simple that i can understand.