How your hosting account is organized into folders, and where to put your website so visitors can see it.
Every hosting account has its own home folder, and every domain in the account has its own folder inside it.
The folder layout
/home/USERNAME/ your home folder /home/USERNAME/example.com/ everything for example.com /home/USERNAME/example.com/public_html/ the website visitors see
Replace USERNAME with your HostPanel user name and example.com with your domain.
Where to put your website
Upload your website into the domain's public_html folder. The page visitors see first must be called index.html or index.php and sit directly inside public_html, not in a subfolder.
If you add a second domain, it gets its own folder, for example /home/USERNAME/second-domain.com/public_html, so the two websites never mix.
Other things in your home folder
- Subdomains have their own folders. The exact path is shown in the Document Root field when you create or edit a subdomain.
- Email is stored in your account too, so large mailboxes count towards your disk space.
- The maintenance page shown while a site is in maintenance mode is
/home/USERNAME/example.com/errors/503.html, and you can edit it.
When you connect with FTP or SFTP, you start in the folder your account is allowed to see, which is shown as/. Open your domain's folder and thenpublic_htmlto reach your website.