Subdirectories are so badly needed

Allow for sites hosted through Webflow to have subdirectories, and better page management with parent and child relationships. Ex: mysite.com/blog/new-post-here

Love the software - keep up the great work!

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Hi @MikeD, we hear you! It’s definitely something that is sorely lacking, and we’re working on adding support for nested folders in a future release! Unfortunately we don’t have any concrete timelines, but please know that it’s a priority for us! :smiley:

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Is there a eta or timeline on this yet? some of us have current client sites with subfolders that we are rebuilding into webflow, if we remove those and flatten the file structure we run into major work and probable losses in back links and other search engine assets.

Hi @webguy, as we’re working on this you can utilize page redirects, which should cover backlink issues when migrating sites.

I’m sorry I was not referencing that client situation, I host on my own servers so if I build flat ( ie all files in the root ) on webflow I can’t really post them to the server any other way … all the old back links and indexing gets broken, I can 301 redirect the old file location to the new location within the htaccess file but that does not resolve any external back links needing to be changed plus the search engines will find and index the new position of the pages on the site making that permanent … I hope that makes sense … it really is a critical issue for existing sites that are being rebuilt into responsive designs.

Hello @MikeD & @webguy,
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve started looking at adding folders and reordering of pages to the Webflow designer. Would be awesome to get your feedback once it lands to see if it does all that you need.

Thank you for requesting this, since it seems to be a feature that a lot of people will benefit from. I appreciate you taking the time. :smile:

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Thank you for the reply.

I would be more than glad to work with you asap on this. I have about 7 fixed position sites to rebuild into responsive, one is critical to get going asap, so I can start working with you as soon as you are ready.

Work flow and usage …
I build custom from a blank page. What I typically do in Webflow is create the index page, header, footer, columns and Nav bar first. I then would bring in pages that go into sub-directories, I duplicate the page ( using the symbol feature for content on the page where needed ) into the sub directory I created and named as needed. I would then set the Navbar link ( which I already have in the symbol function) for linking to that sub-directory page. Of course all the bootstrap files, css, and other Webflow files, would need to work as intended for that added sub-directory page from that sub-directory without needing any further manual editing of those files after export, which I would then upload to my own shared servers. That is my normal work flow process and I hope that makes good sense.

Really appreciate your product and customer support.

Much success!

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You can definitely count me in for early feedback. My first course of action with subdirectories is to make a /blog/post-sample/ directory so we can move our blog onto the webflow platform.

Looking forward to beta testing this!

Any word when you are getting back to us on this? I have one right now that I need to rebuild into Webflow that absolutely has to have sub-directories ( nested folders ) so I can work with you asap on it.

@MikeD that is a great piece of feedback.
We had originally been wondering if people needed nested folders. Based on this information it looks like you do. We have added the infrastructure to support your request and are moving forward with the implementation.

Thanks again for your feedback on this feature!
Will get back to you as soon as there is any news.

Hey @MikeD & @webguy,
Not sure if you saw this yet, but we lunched a [Beta] version of the Folders feature today.

Give it a spin and let me know what you think.
Thanks!

First of all, THANK YOU so much for adding subdirectories! It was perfect timing for me - I hit a project recently that there just was no real way to work around that. BUT, there’s a problem. When I exported my site and uploaded it, I found that all the pages within a subdirectory incorrectly referenced assets - the assets were being linked as if they were within the subdirectory, rather than stepping up to the main asset folder. Example:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/normalize.css">

should be:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/normalize.css">

on any pages within a subdirectory.

For anyone else who runs into this issue, I was actually able to create a very simple workaround in my Nginx configuration file. I added this to my server{} block:

location ~ /[a-zA-Z_-]+/(?<type>(css|js|images))/(?<asset>.*)/?$ {
    alias /var/www/vhosts/afterschool.lummiisland.info/html/$type/$asset;
}

Ultimately, though, it would be better if the asset was properly referenced in Webflow. Again, though, still want to make sure the Webflow folks know that I am super appreciative that you added this feature in - life saver! Now if only I could publish to a remote server without having to export… :wink: