Re: Web site file structure

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]

>Is there an industry standard (if it's like anything else in our business,
I
>highly doubt it) or guide to best performance?  Suggested reading, web
sites or
>other reference material appreciated.

I think Siegel (he of the "Killer Web Sites" fame) suggested the first
"standardized" structure. It was very simplistic: home page at the root
level of the site, all the HTML files in a directory called "HTML" and all
the images and similar add-ins in the "ASSETS" directory.

Yes, it's a morass, but the organization of a web site bears only a
coincidental relationship to the arrangement of the files. The drawback to
this is that on a large site, maintenance can be a nightmare; it's very
difficult to visualize the relationship between the files.

But there's a benefit to this as well: you may decide after you're into the
project that your original navigation structure just won't cut it, and you
need to rebuild it. If you've chosen this rather simple structure, all your
links will still operate, no matter what you do to the navigation
structure. OTOH, if your physical structure is tied to the navigational
structure, then you'll have to move a lot of files around and change a lot
of links.

My gut feeling (I feel I must advise you that while it may be large, my gut
has on occasion been copletely wrong as in when it wanted a cappchino the
other day) is that the effect the file organization has on the speed of the
web server will be the least of your performance worries. The only evidence
I have for it is that every guide to optimizing web site performance that
I've seen ignores this issue entirely.

(BTW, webmonkey has a good tutorial on site optimization:
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/design/site_building/tutorials/tutorial2.html)


Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
----------------------------------------------
In God we trust; all others must provide data.
----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.