Simple Website Examples — Example 02: Basic Site Files

A minimal website setup that adds UTF-8 metadata, robots.txt, and sitemap.xml around a basic page.

This repository is one standalone example in the Simple Website Examples learning series. The examples are intentionally small, plain, and dependency-free so the file structure and core browser concepts remain easy to inspect.

Series context

• Series hub: Simple Website Examples
• Previous: Example 01 — First Web Page
• Next: Example 03 — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Assets

Purpose

Add foundational website files and basic metadata around a simple page.

What you will learn

• How this example fits into a progressively more complete static website.
• Which files are required for this example to work.
• Which files are optional, conventional, or included for teaching context.
• How to open and inspect a plain website without build tools.

How to run

1. Download or clone this repository.
2. Open index.html in a web browser.
3. Inspect the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and supporting files in a code editor.

No package installation, build step, framework, or local web server is required for the base example.

Project structure

README.md
CHANGELOG.md
index.html
robots.txt
sitemap.xml

Required vs. optional files

For this example, index.html is the primary required file because it is the default page most static hosts and browsers expect. Other files are included when the example needs them for styling, behavior, navigation, metadata, accessibility, media, or documentation.

README.md and CHANGELOG.md are not required for the browser to display the website, but they are recommended repository documentation files. They explain what the example demonstrates and provide a clear version history.

Version

Current version: v1.1.0

The website source code for this example started at v1.0.0. Version v1.1.0 is a documentation and repository-packaging update that adopts the shorter simple-website-##-topic repo naming pattern and updates cross-repo GitHub links accordingly.

Notes

• The examples favor clarity over advanced tooling.
• File names use lowercase words separated by hyphens where practical.
• Comments are used to explain educational or structural choices, not every obvious line.