Summary: Each site must have several important documents

No matter what content management system or Web application framework is used to develop a Web site, there are some basic elements that should be covered. It's great to be able to provide a sophisticated user interface and rich content, but before that, the first choice should be to provide the basic files that users can find and clearly express the purpose of the site.

Introduction

There are several standard files that are required for every Web site, but in many cases they are ignored by the site. Most of these files are related to conventions, not technical requirements, but if these files are not available, the site creation goes astray. In addition to the URL can be guessed to try to get, it is often difficult for users to guess to find other things. These standard documents will be briefly described in this article.

How the given resource is provided depends on the Web server layer and the Web application layer that is used. In a "traditional", near-static server such as Apache, these resources are likely to be text files on the server. However, in different configurations, they may also be some entries in the database, some rows in the configuration file, some classes in the server process, and so on. This article focuses on what the user ultimately sees, not how to make it happen.

404.html

When users use your Web site, they will inevitably look for resources that don't exist. Compared to other reasons, this kind of search is more due to the spelling errors of the URL, but the link, the back-end of the wrong configuration, different points of the URL incomplete and other factors can not be underestimated. When a resource is unavailable, it is a good idea to provide some kind of pivoting page to help users navigate to other useful pages. An ordinary "not found" can let users know that resources are not available, but it does not help them solve the "next step" problem.

Warning: When creating a custom 404.html (or any other mechanism used by the Web server to publish custom "no" messages), too many Web sites are incorrectly configured to send "soft 404" messages. In other words, they send a page with a regular "OK" title, which only shows that somewhere in the text is "not available," and perhaps (but not often) there is a "404 Error". This should be avoided. Instead, users (and their Web browsers and other tools) should be saved, using the exact status title.

About.html

So why do you want to create a Web site? Yes, you need to use a home page to answer this question. But more likely, the home page does not provide such information, but only allows users to login, highlighting the site's "selling point", showing some fancy content and so on. It may also be necessary to allow users to navigate to the "about" page from the homepage, and if so, make sure that the information is available from http://mysite.example.com/about.html. Some people are used to looking for such information from this page.

A good about.html page should be able to provide information about the site's functionality, the intent to create the site, and why users should be concerned about the site, and there may be several links that can help users navigate back to the core features of the site. This page does not need to, and usually should not be, gorgeous. Just keep it realistic and accurate so that users can take advantage of all the functionality that the site can provide.

Contact.html

So how do I get in touch with you? With about.html, users can get this information by clicking Multiple clicks on an existing home page. Don't let the user take too much effort to find this information: place it in http://mysite.example.com/contact.html. Use the same contacts.html for the same page. Please introduce an. htm extension. The name is easy to use. Of course, this information can also be left at the end of the chain of navigation screens generated by these clicks, but it is also good to provide redundant solutions for finding resources.

Copyright.html

Who owned the copyright of the website? It is possible that the content belongs to you, but who are you? Personal? Company? Partner? Government agencies? If the content is in the public domain or within the scope of the free content license, you may need to inform the user of this. Nowadays, almost any content has its own copyright: if your content complies with different principles, please inform the user. But it's not enough to bother to provide such information at the moment, but why not add it to your site? Because there are always some users who will be concerned about this information.

Obviously, different pages or resources may have different copyright information. Use this page to provide users with information about how to determine the individual differences. If there is a trademark issue, please provide it together.

Index.html (and index.htm)

Not every WEB server actually uses the index.html file to describe its home page. Depending on the settings, there may be URL rewriting, dynamic generation by path name, and so on. But users don't care about these details! Just let http://mysite.example.com/index.html point to the home page, even for this purpose, you have to use simple HTML redirection.

Yes, well, then let the old. htm extension take effect as well. If you still think it's not enough, do the same for index.cgi.

Index.rss

Many Web content is available via RSS. Although this practice does not apply to all Web sites, it is more effective for most sites. Making RSS content independent of user-specific configuration options, logging in, or paying for specific information is extremely reasonable. Because RSS is not exhaustive.

Even so, if something can be provided as an RSS feed, do so. Perhaps the Index.rss gives only "ad" content, and sometimes it provides a cliché of how to use the advantages of RSS feeds. Sometimes it may be a description of why RSS is not relevant to your Web site.

Privacy.html

Once you want to collect user information (even if you only have a username or traffic log), you should tell the user what you intend to do with the information. The legal issues surrounding the rights and responsibilities of Web site creators and/or users are complex-I am not a lawyer and cannot solve your legal problems. However, if you can take into account the user's personal privacy, users will still feel. And maybe you should talk to your lawyer at this point about how to handle the user's data.

Robots.txt

If you do not want all resources on your WEB site to be indexed by automated tools, please explain them in the robots.txt file. But if you do want content to be indexed, do so. The exclusion Standard directive does not enforce the user: If you do not want something to be visible, do not place it on the site, or make sure that there is sufficient license protection thereafter. However, all major legitimate Web crawler engines comply with robots.txt requirements. So please try to be as clear as possible about your intentions.

Security.html

The use of security.html is not mandatory. However, if there are security issues with the site (for example, if you collect any sensitive information from the user), it is a good idea to establish a documentation (or at least a general summary) of the security process. Please provide contact information on this page to prevent users from having any questions or suggestions for improvement. Finding this information should conform to the overall organization of the site navigation options. That being the case, you might as well put the resource on this URL.

Site Map

How to display a map of the entire Web site is not yet fully standardized. Some of the things that are provided for the site map are always useful, but the extent to which these things are detailed depends on how dynamic the site is (or in a dynamic way). Also, the content you want to display for your users depends on the intent of the site. For example, if a user does not have permission to use the resource X, it may not be appropriate to let the user know that resource X exists. Please try to provide something according to your own judgment and circumstances.

For many sites, providing site maps is nothing more than the support and friendliness of automated mechanisms such as search engines. Google issued a new agreement on the basis of the robots.txt agreement. In summary, you can create an XML file to give all the resources that the site provides. This is a bit like a "include list", which acts as a complement to the "exclude list" of robots.txt.

Email address

It's not enough to think only about what's on the Web. Sometimes Web site navigation tools are not as desirable (or some users may not understand your elegant design), so it is best for users to be able to contact you via email.