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While it doesn't seem all that important to many beginners, file naming is incredibly important not only in web design, but in general file maintenance. In web design, however, it can become your downfall if you utilize bad naming conventions. Because of this, it is important that you understand why you need to make sure that you have high quality names, and what it can do for you.

The most important reasoning for naming your files correctly is more so that you life becomes easier as a webmaster. If you don't know what files do what, then you are going to find it relatively difficult to find the files that you need to edit in order to fix issues or update your website. So, because of this, especially if you have a massive website, you really need to consider the file names that you utilize.

The most popular and the method that I normally use, is creating file names that describe what that file does. By doing this, I will be able to easily read through my list of files and know exactly what this file is for. For example if I have a sub page that is about creative writing and focuses on poetry, then it would look like this:

Creative_poetry.htm

Since I don't want too long of a name, I will eliminate the writing part of creative writing, because it isn't necessary. I know I will remember this file name, so I leave it like this. However, if your entire website is about creative writing and poetry in general, you may need to label your files as follows:

Creative_poetry_love.h tm

This would signify that this page is for creative writing, about love poetry. This makes it really easy to understand what page this is going to edit. However, things can come even more complex if you have a great deal of content. It is for this reason, that I suggest you start creating folders for your content. For example, your love poetry, would be part of the poetry folder:

/poetry/creative_poetry _love.htm

Because you already know it is poetry, and creative writing because of the folder it is in, you could even just name it:

poetry_love.htm

or

love.htm

Wh atever method you want to use. However, it is important to remember, that even though one method creates a much shorter name, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is better. That is because search engines are much more likely to use the key words in your link to support the content on you site. Because of this, a link to poetry_love.htm would be much better for your search engine ranking than simply love.htm. This is because, you'll have multiple

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