Organising web space

[fleetwood]

With version 8 encouraging a fresh start, I've taken on some new web space to start playing around with.
If all goes to plan, I intend to eventually host more than one of my domains within the same space.

Before I start creating a directory structure, I was wondering if there is a best practice to follow.

My exising webspace on Claranet, has the following structure, which I 'think' was set up by the them:

mydoman.co.uk
... conf
... home
... logs
... public
... ... ... www
... ... ... ... ... acatalog
... ... ... ... ... cgi-bin
... ... ... stats
... security

Is this a 'normal' structure, or just how Claranet do things?
ie, in my new space, should I start by creating a folder 'mydomain.co.uk' under the root, followed by a sub-folder 'public', then 'www', and then place actalaog under 'www', or does this not matter in the slightest?

Can I just do this:

/mydomain.co.uk/acatalog
/mydomain/cgi-bin ?

Is there any significance to having a folders named 'www' and 'public'?

[Duncan Rounding]

This is somewhat dependant on your host. For example I have multiple domains hosted with 1and1 and my simple structure is as follows:
logs
domain1
domain1/cgi-bin
domain1/acatalog
domain2
domain2/cgi-bin
domain2/acatalog
domain3
domain3/cgi-bin
domain3/acatalog
etc.

[chris ashdown]

Martin

Have you thought that if the server goes down all your sites will go down with it, if you spread them around other isp's you significatly reduce your risk of zero income at little extra cost

Even using the same isp but having different servers should be a better safeguard if it can be arranged

Extra space to play with is obviously no problem

[fleetwood]

Thanks Duncan.
It is with 1and1 that I have taken on the new space, under BusinessPro.
The layout you have is exactly what I was thinking of.
Its only when I checked how Claranet were running my existing space, that I started to wonder if there was any significance to the layout, especially with regards to having folders called 'public', and 'www'.
Its probably just their way, but thought I best check first.

[fleetwood]

A good point Chris, although at the moment, I'll just be experimenting - I doubt whether I will be going live with anything new for quite some time yet.
The new domains I mentioned are just names I have purchased with my eye on the future.
I'm literally taking this opportunity (version 8), to start with a fresh approach, from the ground up.

[jont]

With CLARA I simply created a new folder called v8 at the same level as www then created a new cgi-bin folder inside.. this is used for the v8 trials eg:

www.site.co.uk - main web site
v8.site.co.uk - trial area

not forgetting to change the script ID to another number than used on the www side of things

[jont]

Is there any significance to having a folders named 'www' and 'public'?

The "public" folder is accessible to the world at large - hence why the "www" folder is in there ... anything above or the same level as "public" will have access denied to the browsers