Creating a Homepage

Last Updated: Jun 8, 2021
documentation for the dotCMS Content Management System

You can create a homepage for your site or any folder, by creating a page with the URL “index” in your host folder or any other folder in your Site Browser tree.

Creating a Site Homepage

The default homepage in any Host is the “index” page that lies in the root folder of the Site Browser tree. This page will be displayed automatically when a user visits the domain of your site, without including a specific folder or page in the URL.

For example, if your site name is www.mywebsite.com, visiting http://www.mywebsite.com automatically displays the index page that exists in the root folder (www.mywebsite.com/index).

For information on how to create a custom homepage, which uses a URL other than “index”, please see the Custom Home Pages and Error Pages documentation.

Creating a Default Page for a Folder

The default page in any Folder on your site is the “index” page that lies in that folder. Index is a special page URL that indicates that the HTML page is the default page that will be displayed when the URL of that directory is visited directly. Each folder that has HTML pages in it (that are meant to be reached by a browser), should have an index page in that folder.

To create a homepage for a folder (Ex: www.mywebsite.com/Products/):

  1. Right-click the root (host) folder in the Site Browser.
  2. Select Add Folder.
  3. Name the folder and select the Show On Menu checkbox to allow the folder to appear in the navigation menus on your site. Save and Publish the folder.
  4. Right-click the new folder in the Site Browser tree, and select New and then Page.
  5. In the pop-up window, select Page Asset as the page content type.
  6. In the Page Properties window, enter the folder name (e.g. “Products”) in the Title field, but change the URL to “index”.
    • Important: Do NOT choose the Show on Menu property for the page.
      • If you select this property, you will menu items showing both the folder and the index page itself, and clicking on either of these will display the same index page.
  7. Finishing editing the page properties and click Save and Publish.

You should now be able to reach the new page through the following URL: http://www.mywebsite.com/products/.

For information on how to add content to the new page, please see the Add New Content to an HTML Page documentation.

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