Which File Loads First

When a visitor enters your website’s URL on a web browser. The server locates the first page of your website, also called the index page. But there are other default first-page file types that the server looks into to load on your website. These are index.htm, index.html, or index.php. These file types can either be for your website’s content or server-side scripting. In this article, you’ll learn in which order do these pages load on your website.

If no particular file is specified, the directory index file will be the first file the server loads from a folder.

For example, if you type in mydomain.com/contact_us.php, the server will return the contact_us.php page. If you type in simply mydomain.com, the server will load the directory's index file.

The server looks for the specific index files in the following order:

• index.htm
• index.html
• index.php

If the server does not find any of these files, it will display a default screen with a list of the files in the folder. This can be a security risk so you always need to ensure that a file will be served instead.

Please let us know if you need any further assistance, or if you have any questions. We’d love to help!