What is a public_html Folder?

The public_html subdirectory serves as your principal domain name’s web root.

All of the website files that you want to see when someone puts in your primary domain (the one you gave when you signed up for hosting) are contained in the public_html folder.

Put another way, visitors will see whatever is in the public_html folder when they input your domain name into their browser.

Where To Find this Folder?

You can find the public_html folder inside your File Manager in your cPanel.

Examples

For example, if the file named as index.html is present in the public_html folder, it will get displayed when your website is browsed.

In case there isn’t a default file in the public_html folder (such as index.html, default.html, etc.), then a list of files in the public_html folder will be displayed.

Note: Ensure to replace example.com with the primary domain on your account ( the one that you had signed up with).

Addon Domains & Subdomains

It is possible to create Addon domains and Subdomains and these will be stored in the folder inside public_html.

Examples

Suppose you create an Addon domain named as addondomain.com. It will use a subfolder same as /public_html/addondomain.com/ (unless you specify any other).

Or if create a Subdomain named as hostvento.abc.com, it will use a folder same as /public_html/hostvento/ (unless you specify any other).

Suppose hostvento.abc.com is defined as a subdomain, and addondomain.com is defined as an addon domain, then the following examples are applicable:

Remember to modify abc.com to your account’s principal domain (the one you used when you first joined up, if you haven’t changed it). Additionally, change addondomain.com to the additional domain you added in the “addon domains” section of the cPanel.

Reseller, VPS, or dedicated hosting are better options if you don’t want the other domains to be public_html subfolders. This is because you can keep each domain separate from the others by adding it to its own cPanel. Since shared hosting only comes with one cPanel, all addon domains are public_html folder subfolders.

Permissions

It is important that public_html folder has 0750 permissions.

Check if all files within the public_html folder have 0755 or 0644 permissions.

Note: Although the whole path may be /home/username/public_html/ (where username is your cPanel username), you will most likely see /public_html/ rather than the full path since most browsers think you are in your home directory.

I hope you now know more about the public_html folder after reading this post.