I have been told by someone optimizing our site that our files should be in the www and not the public folder. I didnt know this was possible? He claims it is like having multiple copies of the same page.
Hello, and thank you for your question.
It actually doesn't matter what folder you place your files in, because as you might have noticed, they are duplicated into the other folder automatically.
The server isn't actually storing two copies of the same files, instead the www file is simply a symbolic link to the main /public_html folder. These can also be called a symlink, or a soft link.
The www symbolic link could be deleted and the target directory of /public_html would remain unaffected. However if you deleted the /public_html directory, when you went to try to access the www symbolic link, it would cease to function because the target it was linking to no longer existed.
Hope that helps clear things up. Please let us know if you had any further questions at all!
- Jacob
wwwfile is simply a symbolic link to the main/public_htmlfolder. These can also be called a symlink, or a soft link. Thewwwsymbolic link could be deleted and the target directory of/public_htmlwould remain unaffected. However if you deleted the/public_htmldirectory, when you went to try to access thewwwsymbolic link, it would cease to function because the target it was linking to no longer existed. Hope that helps clear things up. Please let us know if you had any further questions at all! - Jacob