Looking for help with file structure

[thnktnk]

You have a newbie online, so be gentle

For a new website I'm developing, I will be periodically adding new content (pictures mostly), and I'm unsure of the best way to file the new content and also have historical files available. Do I need to add new subdirectories each time a new set of pictures get uploaded?

Thanks

[Jeff]

I like subdirectories so no single directory gets too huge for me to easily see what's there. Depending on how you're placing/loading images, I often find it easiest to keep navigation/border/site-wide images in one directory and then individual page or section images within that page or section's folder.

Another way though would be to use prefixes in the filenames, 20080827-category-photo_name.jpg which could then be sorted or using the separator character easily parsed.

I guess the question on my mind would be: what will you need to do with these images over time and how can you most easily keep the format well structured over time (e.g. when keeping images in individual directories I usually keep directory names/URLs as human readable as possible so that's not very good for me if I need to go through later on and run a script to create thumbnails as the directory names aren't really well structured in my case)

[Andilinks]

One thing I have learned recently is to have several subdirectories denied to googlebot so your images don't get indexed because people will hotlink to them after they find them on Google images.

When I do find one or more people stealing my bandwidth I simply change the subdirectory. I know there are more sophisticated ways to foil hotlinkers but this simple and effective method works fine for me.

Also have learned (from Terra) that more than 3000 files in one directory puts a strain on the server and slows things down so I keep them below 1000 files per folder just to be on the safe side.

Keeping historical files depends on how many and how often you may need to access them. I just keep them locally myself.