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Standards

Web Naming Conventions

File naming standards

These standards for file names are consistent with best practices. They were adopted to facilitate consistency and usability, and to promote standardized branding and marketing for all WMU Web sites.

When naming Web files and folders, remember that those names become part of the Web address (URL). Consider the relative ease of giving out the full Web address over the telephone or including it in an e-mail message. In naming files and folders, shorter and simpler is always better.

1. Name the main page in every directory index.html. Do not use home, main, default or other options. The file name, index.html, is the default on all Web servers. When index.html is used as the default page, the server recognizes it to be the main page of the directory and thus does not require that the file name be included at the end of the address. Thus, for publicity purposes in print, the shorter wmich.edu/news can, and should be used instead of wmich.edu/news/index.html.
2. Do not use blank spaces, underscores, or special characters in your file or folder names. Although most servers will substitute %20 for the blank space, having spaces in Web addresses is confusing to the customer. Underscores do not show up in an underlined link on a Web page, and their use also is confusing.
3. Use lowercase for all file and folder names. It is far less confusing when giving Web addresses over the phone if they are all lowercase rather than mixed case addresses. Use only lower case letters, numbers and hyphens, and use periods only as separators from file extensions. Examples: /report/2008.html, /photos/dunn-john.jpg.
4. Shorten file and directory names. Directory and file names become part of the Web address. Shorter is better. For example, use tools rather than tools-of-the-trade for the name of a file or folder.
5. Use the file extension html rather than htm for WMU pages. It is less confusing to customers if consistent file extensions are used throughout WMU's site.