📂 Managing & Deploying Your Site

This is the core workflow for a static HTML site — no WordPress, no database needed:

• Step 1 — Edit your files locally on your computer (HTML, CSS, JS)
• Step 2 — Open your FTP client (FileZilla) or cPanel File Manager
• Step 3 — Connect to your server using your FTP credentials
• Step 4 — Navigate to public_html/ on the server
• Step 5 — Upload (drag & drop) the changed files, overwriting the old ones
• Step 6 — Refresh your browser — changes are live immediately! 🎉

FileZilla is a free, open-source FTP client available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It's the most popular tool for uploading website files.

Setup steps:

• Download FileZilla from filezilla-project.org
• Open it — you'll see 4 panes: local files (left), server files (right)
• Enter your host, username, password and port at the top, click Quickconnect
• Navigate to public_html on the right
• Drag files from the left (local) to the right (server)

If you uploaded files but don't see changes, the most common reasons are:

• Browser cache — Your browser is showing you the old cached version. Press Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac) to do a hard refresh.
• Wrong folder — You may have uploaded to the wrong directory. Make sure files are in public_html/
• Wrong filename — Check the file is named exactly index.html (lowercase, no spaces)
• CDN caching — If your site uses a CDN (e.g. Cloudflare), you may need to purge its cache

No! A static website made of HTML, CSS and JavaScript files requires no database at all. The server simply serves the files as-is.

This is a massive advantage over WordPress:

• ✅ No MySQL to configure or back up
• ✅ No PHP needed
• ✅ Pages load faster (no database queries)
• ✅ More secure (no database to hack)
• ✅ Works on any basic hosting plan
• ✅ Easy to deploy — just copy files!

Adding content to a static HTML site is straightforward:

To add a new question to an existing page:

• Open the relevant .html file in a text editor (VS Code, Notepad++)
• Copy an existing <div class="qa-item">...</div> block
• Paste it below and change the question and answer text
• Save and upload the file via FTP

To add a new sub-topic page:

• Copy an existing page (e.g. linux-basics.html) as a template
• Rename it (e.g. linux-networking.html)
• Update the title, breadcrumb and Q&A content
• Add a link to it in the sidebar and relevant category pages
• Upload the new file