Slash Pages

Slash pages are recognizable URLs that communicate the purpose of a page through its path. A /now page describes someone’s current interests and activities. A /uses page lists tools and equipment. A /colophon explains how the website was built. A /blogroll introduces other sites worth visiting.

These conventions grew out of independent-web culture. They let publishers express personality, interests, preferences, and creative work without needing a social media profile or a platform’s fixed set of fields. A personal website can be more than a blog, portfolio, or résumé. Slash pages make room for the material that does not fit neatly into traditional navigation—and for the unconventional pages that make a site feel like a place.

Slash pages are ordinary HTML pages with thoughtful addresses. They work alongside semantic HTML, feeds, sitemaps, and metadata. They are community conventions, not a proprietary Joshternet feature and not a formal Internet standard.

Where slash pages came from

Paths such as /about became familiar across the web because they are easy to remember and share. Independent publishers extended that habit into more personal conventions: /now for what is current, /uses for tools, /colophon for how the site was made, and many others.

Writers and builders across the IndieWeb—including people such as Caleb Hearth, Shellsharks, and Robb Knight—helped popularize and catalog these ideas. The community-maintained directory at slashpages.net collects common slash-page names and examples. It is a shared reference, not a standards organization that grants or withholds permission.

Conventions evolve. You can adopt established names, combine ideas, or invent new pages. Slash pages do not replace HTML, sitemaps, feeds, or structured data. They add an understandable organizational layer that sits beside those standards.

How slash pages work

A slash page is an ordinary web resource with a meaningful URL. The conventional name /now becomes a public address when combined with your site’s origin—for example https://joshua.example/now/.

Common patterns on independently hosted sites:

• /about/ for information about the author or project.
• /now/ for current activities.
• /uses/ for software and equipment.
• /colophon/ for how the website was made.
• /blogroll/ for recommended websites.

Trailing slashes, redirects, extensionless URLs, and path case sensitivity matter. Depending on the server, /now, /now/, and /now.html can be different resources even when you configure them to resolve to one preferred page. Prefer consistent, stable URLs, self-referencing canonical links where appropriate, and document titles that name the page clearly. See SEO fundamentals for canonicalization detail.

The slash-page directory

The following groups describe common community conventions. They are not mandatory, and they are not exhaustive. slashpages.net lists many more.

Identity and personal information

An About page introduces the person or project. A Now page is meant to stay current. A manifesto (/why) explains stance. Elsewhere and verify pages connect identities without replacing Identity and authorship patterns such as h-card and rel=me.

Website information

These pages explain construction, history, design, and publishing practice.

Tools and everyday life

These pages describe practical tools, habits, preferences, and goals. A /uses page is site information about tools—not automatic eligibility for creative Showcase surfaces. See Uses pages.

Reading and recommendations

A blogroll of recommended sites differs from a personal bookmarks dump, a podcast recommendation list, or a catalog of books you authored. Label the page so visitors know which.

Writing and ideas

Collection pages help readers browse; individual articles still need stable URLs of their own.

Creative work and projects

List collections and give each work a meaningful, stable URL. See Creative media.

Community and participation

These pages help visitors discover collaborators, communities, and other independent sites. See Connections and Events.

Personal and unconventional pages

Examples such as /ai, /hats, /hills, /top4, /shoebox, /chipotle, /green, /glossary, /for, and /blank show the range of independent publishing. Unusual pages are part of the charm. You can experiment without waiting for a platform to invent a profile field.

Share only what you intentionally want public. Some conventions invite details about health, location, family, finances, or plans. Discovery systems and directories are not a reason to publish sensitive information. If a page should stay private, keep it off the public web.

Start with what you want to share

You do not need every slash page. A handful of maintained pages is more useful than dozens of empty placeholders.

Example starting sets (not requirements):

• Personal websites: /about, /now, /uses, /interests, /links
• Writers: /about, /writing, /notes, /books, /blogroll
• Developers and makers: /projects, /uses, /colophon, /experiments, /til
• Artists and photographers: /portfolio, /gallery, /photography, /about, /events
• Musicians: /music, /performances, /events, /about, /elsewhere

Choose paths that match work you actually publish and maintain.

Create your first slash page

A /now/ page is a practical first slash page: its purpose is clear, and almost any personal site can use one.

Step 1: Choose the URL

Pick the conventional path /now/ (or your host’s equivalent) and decide the stable public address, such as https://joshua.example/now/. Redirect alternate spellings to that preferred URL when you can.

Step 2: Create the HTML

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Now | Example Site</title>
  <meta
    name="description"
    content="What I am focused on this season: writing,
             a small photo project, and keeping the site honest."
  >
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://joshua.example/now/">
</head>
<body>
  <header>
    <p><a href="https://joshua.example/">Example Site</a></p>
    <nav aria-label="Site">
      <a href="https://joshua.example/about/">About</a>
      <a href="https://joshua.example/now/">Now</a>
      <a href="https://joshua.example/slashes/">Slashes</a>
    </nav>
  </header>
  <main>
    <article>
      <h1>Now</h1>
      <p>
        Updated
        <time datetime="2026-11-01">Nov. 1, 2026</time>
      </p>
      <p>
        I am rewriting handbook chapters for independent publishers,
        finishing a short photo series from the harbor, and learning
        to keep this /now page honest instead of aspirational.
      </p>
      <p>
        Related:
        <a href="https://joshua.example/notes/">Notes</a>
        and
        <a href="https://joshua.example/photos/">Photos</a>.
      </p>
    </article>
  </main>
</body>
</html>

Step 3: Add the page to navigation

Link from the homepage, About page, or primary nav with ordinary HTML:

<a href="/now/">Now</a>

Visitors should not have to guess the URL.

Step 4: Publish and verify

Open the URL in a browser and inspect the response:

curl -i https://joshua.example/now/

Confirm a successful status, the expected HTML, and that the canonical URL matches the preferred address.

Step 5: Maintain the content

Update /now when your focus changes. A visible last-updated date helps visitors judge how current the page is.

Give visitors a map of your slash pages

/slashes/ is a human-readable directory of the slash pages on your site. Each entry should use a descriptive label and a short explanation—not only a bare path.

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Slashes | Example Site</title>
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://joshua.example/slashes/">
</head>
<body>
  <main>
    <h1>Slashes</h1>
    <p>
      A map of the recognizable pages on this site.
      Paths are conventions, not requirements.
    </p>

    <h2>Personal</h2>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <a href="/about/">About</a>
        — who maintains this site.
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="/now/">Now</a>
        — what I am focused on lately.
      </li>
    </ul>

    <h2>Writing and projects</h2>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <a href="/notes/">Notes</a>
        — short posts and essays.
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="/projects/">Projects</a>
        — apps and experiments.
      </li>
    </ul>

    <h2>Site</h2>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <a href="/colophon/">Colophon</a>
        — how this site is built.
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="/uses/">Uses</a>
        — tools and equipment.
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="/blogroll/">Blogroll</a>
        — sites I recommend.
      </li>
    </ul>
  </main>
</body>
</html>

You can maintain the index by hand or generate it with a static-site generator.

/slashes/ is not an XML sitemap. An HTML sitemap (sometimes at /sitemap) is a human overview of many site URLs. An XML sitemap advertises URLs to crawlers (Sitemaps). The three can complement each other; they serve different jobs. A good /slashes/ page also helps crawlers that follow ordinary hyperlinks.

Help people and crawlers find your pages

1. Link from primary navigation.
2. Link from relevant articles, projects, and the homepage.
3. Include pages in /slashes/.
4. List canonical public URLs in an XML sitemap when you publish one.
5. Use clear titles, descriptions, and semantic HTML.
6. Optionally publish /.well-known/slashpages OPML (OPML chapter).
7. Keep intended pages publicly reachable (SEO, Robots).

Some crawlers recognize common paths such as /about, /now, and /uses. Do not rely only on path guessing. Making a URL discoverable does not guarantee indexing or prominent presentation.

Machine-readable slash-page catalogs

A human /slashes/ index and an optional /.well-known/slashpages OPML document solve related problems. The HTML index is for people (and link-following crawlers). The OPML manifest can list page URLs and associate them with slash-page categories for machines.

If you use a nonstandard path, you can still advertise a recognized category in the manifest where consumers support it. For example, a current-status page at /updates/current/ might be categorized as /now in OPML while the public URL stays /updates/current/.

<!-- Illustrative fragment only — see the OPML chapter for a full document -->
<outline text="now" type="link" url="https://joshua.example/updates/current/" />

OPML 2.0 is a general outline format. /.well-known/slashpages is a newer publishing convention that uses OPML for slash-page catalogs. The complete walkthrough—properties, parsing rules, and examples—lives in OPML and /.well-known/slashpages.

Slash pages and structured metadata

The URL path suggests the general purpose of a page. Semantic HTML and structured metadata describe the specific content.

Feeds, Open Graph, and JSON-LD can describe the same work for other consumers. A conventional path alone is not sufficient evidence for every classification. See Microformats2, Open Graph, and Schema.org.

Slash pages and the Joshternet

In a network of independently operated websites, recognizable paths help visitors find personal information, projects, writing, creative collections, and links between sites. Joshternet’s discovery systems recognize a reviewed catalog of common slash-page paths—including writing indexes, identity pages, and creative collections—when participants publish them publicly and permit crawling.

Identifying a page as a possible content source is not the same as verifying every item for Topics, Showcase, or other surfaces. A /uses page does not automatically make each mentioned product a creative work. A /gallery page does not automatically establish that every linked file is a distinct photograph eligible for Showcase. Path recognition is a discovery aid, not a guarantee of indexing or featuring.

There is room for your own ideas

Slash pages are conventions, not a closed allowlist. Invent pages that reflect your interests, creative practice, or community.

Keep custom pages discoverable with:

• A meaningful URL.
• A descriptive document title.
• Links from navigation and related content.
• An entry in /slashes/.
• A sitemap entry when you use sitemaps.
• Optional OPML categorization when an appropriate community category exists.

Do not misrepresent a custom name as a widely recognized convention merely because it appears in your personal catalog. Unconventional pages that are useful, entertaining, or personally meaningful are welcome when you intend them to be public.

Common mistakes

Complete example: A personal website

Imagine Harbor Notes at https://joshua.example/ with this public structure:

Homepage navigation might look like:

<nav aria-label="Site">
  <a href="/about/">About</a>
  <a href="/now/">Now</a>
  <a href="/notes/">Notes</a>
  <a href="/projects/">Projects</a>
  <a href="/slashes/">Slashes</a>
</nav>

A complete /slashes/ page for that site:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Slashes | Harbor Notes</title>
  <meta
    name="description"
    content="A map of the slash pages on Harbor Notes."
  >
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://joshua.example/slashes/">
</head>
<body>
  <header>
    <p><a href="https://joshua.example/">Harbor Notes</a></p>
  </header>
  <main>
    <h1>Slashes</h1>
    <p>Recognizable pages on this site.</p>
    <h2>Personal</h2>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="/about/">About</a> — the person behind Harbor Notes.</li>
      <li><a href="/now/">Now</a> — current projects and focus.</li>
      <li><a href="/uses/">Uses</a> — tools and equipment.</li>
    </ul>
    <h2>Writing and work</h2>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="/notes/">Notes</a> — articles and short posts.</li>
      <li><a href="/projects/">Projects</a> — apps and experiments.</li>
    </ul>
    <h2>Site and recommendations</h2>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="/colophon/">Colophon</a> — how this site is made.</li>
      <li><a href="/blogroll/">Blogroll</a> — sites worth reading.</li>
    </ul>
  </main>
</body>
</html>

Notes and project pages can link back to their indexes. Visitors get a map; feed readers still use feeds; search engines and independent crawlers can follow the same links. No client-side JavaScript is required.

Validate your implementation

Check the URLs

curl -i https://joshua.example/now/
curl -i https://joshua.example/slashes/

Confirm each slash page returns the intended resource and status.

Check semantic HTML

Confirm a meaningful title, heading, main content, and readable text (Nu HTML Checker).

Check navigation

Verify every public slash page is reachable from the site or /slashes/ without JavaScript.

Check canonicalization

Confirm canonical URLs match the preferred public resources.

Check access permissions

Ensure robots.txt does not unintentionally block pages meant to be public.

Check the slash-page index

Confirm listed links work, descriptions help, and the index does not expose unintended private material.

Check optional metadata

If you publish XML sitemaps or /.well-known/slashpages, verify those declarations match live URLs.

Continue through the handbook

Slash pages organize a site into understandable places. Machine-readable catalogs and deeper formats build on that organization:

• OPML and /.well-known/slashpages — next specialized chapter for manifests
• Semantic HTML
• SEO fundamentals
• Feeds
• Sitemaps
• Microformats2
• Identity and authorship
• Connections
• Creative media
• Uses pages

Handbook navigation below follows content_nav (previous: SEO fundamentals; next: OPML and well-known slashpages).

Specifications and references

Slash pages are a community convention, not a formal Internet standard. The formats below govern their own technical rules:

• Slash Pages community directory — shared catalog of path ideas
• IndieWeb wiki — independent-web practices
• HTML Living Standard — document structure and semantics
• OPML 2.0 specification — outline format used by slashpages manifests

• Sitemaps protocol — XML sitemaps for URL advertisement