Certified Wordpress Developer Wordpress directories

Wordpress directories
 


There are only THREE top level folders, though.

  • wp-content (where themes, plugins and uploaded files live)
  • wp-admin (where all admin tools live)
  • wp-includes (where the code that runs it all lives)

wp-content
This is perhaps The Most Important folder for Your Blog. All files unique to your blog are stored within that specific folder and backing this one up is what you should do on regular bases. And I’ll go into details on what is most common contents of that folder – it might be slightly different on your blog due to number of themes and plugins installed and images and files uploaded to it through your WordPress Editor

plugins
This is the folder where all your plugins are installed to. That includes plugins that come with WordPress by default, such as akismet and Hello Dolly (hello.php) and custom plugin, such as SK2 (Spam Karma 2). Depending on how the plugin was released you have to either install a single file directly into this folder (hello.php) or place a folder INSIDE the plugins folder (SK2). Either way it will work as long as you make sure you place the right files in right location. Usually you will find a README file with plugin you downloaded that explains exactly how you need to install it.

themes
Folder that contains 2 default themes (classic and default) and ANY of the custom themes you have installed. I’m not going to into deep details on this one as I plan to create another tutorial on it but for now I simply want you to know that this is where your theme is located.

upload
Folder that contains ALL your images and files uploaded using a Build In file manager when you write a post or a page. Generally separated by Year/Month. Failure to backup this file will lead to ALL links to images and files on your blog to be broken if you have to restore database without it.


There are two types of installations that are generally done on shared hosting and both relate to the path of blog (WordPress Root Folder) differently as -

  • When WordPress Is The Main Site, i.e accessed via https://www.domain.com. When your blog is installed using this type – your blog Root Folder will be most commonly public_html or www, depends on what your host is using.
  • When WordPress Is Sub-domain or A Folder Within Main Site. This is the case shown in picture above and while the url to your blog will be different depending on which method you used, i.e accessed as https://blogname.domain.com or https://www.domain.com/blogname/ all files will still be located within the folder INSIDE the public_html, blogname or as in case in the picture /public_html/jvblog/.

The differences outlined above DO Matter as it defines WHERE you will have to upload the new WordPress files to update the core.

 

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