index.html?

[Layouts]

What is an, index.html
and why do I have to upload it to my
public_html directory?

:]

[*Face]

An index.html is the default page that is served (displayed to the browser) when no specific file in a directory is specified. For example, http://site.com/ will actually display http://site.com/index.html (usually)

You need it in public_html because that's where your publicly viewable pages are. Think of the other directories as system directories and don't mess with them.