<p>I recently setup a structure which contains (almost) every page of my site. When I set it up, I specified only <code>{slug}</code> as the URL.</p>

<p>So far, it's working fantastically! And that's with about 30-40 pages created in the structure (some nested within others).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-16T16:58:11.193Z
Lindsey, do you have an idea on how to add the site's main page to that structure? My first attempt was to simply add an entry with a slug "index" to the top level.
carlcs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-18T05:31:09.193Z
@Christian Excellent question... Unfortunately, I don't have a great answer for you. I've used this technique a few times now, and each time I've made the home page a separate Single entry.
Lindsey D
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-17T17:12:07.340Z
Thanks, that's good to know. Have you tried this with multiple structures at all? I'm wondering whether there are any potential pitfalls with having multiple sections that all use the base URL of `{slug}`
Nick F
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-17T17:15:28.080Z
I contemplated doing it with multiple structures, but then I decided it was better to use one master structure. If your structures are based on "which nav the link appears in", there's no guarantee that you may or may not add that page to a different nav. And you definitely don't want to have to move your page data between structures, or get creative with how your nav displays.
Lindsey D
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-17T17:20:16.610Z
The docs on ["How to create a nav for my Structure section"](http://buildwithcraft.com/help/structure-nav) were incredibly helpful... It's good to know that your generated nav doesn't need to start at the root level.
Lindsey D
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-17T17:35:14.340Z
Hmm. That's definitely a possibility - I think it's less confusing than the "single for top page / structure for sub-pages" approach - but I'm pretty keen to keep sections separate if at all possible, rather than lumping them all together...
Nick F
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-17T17:39:36.230Z
Curious, what are the distinctions between your structures? I thought about having a main "parent" structure, then several key "children" sub-structures... Each child sub-structure would serve the purpose of individual structures. Haven't tested it yet though. **Big benefit...** You can easily share Entry Types anywhere within the overarching structure.
Lindsey D
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-06-17T15:42:52.733Z
2014-06-17T15:42:52.733Z
Lindsey D
<p>It seems that currently if you want to avoid the main "about" page at the top of an "about" structure having a slug of /about/about/ then the approach people seem to take is to create an About page as a single, and a separate structure for subpages.</p>

<p>An alternative approach that occurred to me is to give the structure section a URL of just <code>{slug}</code> and then make everything a child of the "About" entry. <strong>Is there any particular disadvantage to doing this though?</strong></p>

<p>I can see that it potentially allows URLs from different structures to clash (if someone creates a new top-level entry in a structure), but my feeling is that if I have to choose, the possibility for users to mess up the structure seems less bad than the probability that the "separate single + structure" approach will be confusing for users. Is there some other disadvantage that I'm overlooking here, though?﻿</p>

<structure><best-practice><sections>
How to handle top-level/index pages in structure sections?
# How to handle top-level/index pages in structure sections?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-06-17)

It seems that currently if you want to avoid the main "about" page at the top of an "about" structure having a slug of /about/about/ then the approach people seem to take is to create an About page as a single, and a separate structure for subpages.

An alternative approach that occurred to me is to give the structure section a URL of just `{slug}` and then make everything a child of the "About" entry. **Is there any particular disadvantage to doing this though?**

I can see that it potentially allows URLs from different structures to clash (if someone creates a new top-level entry in a structure), but my feeling is that if I have to choose, the possibility for users to mess up the structure seems less bad than the probability that the "separate single + structure" approach will be confusing for users. Is there some other disadvantage that I'm overlooking here, though?﻿

**Tags:** structure, best-practice, sections


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-06-17. Score: 9 | Accepted answer

I recently setup a structure which contains (almost) every page of my site. When I set it up, I specified only `{slug}` as the URL.

So far, it's working fantastically! And that's with about 30-40 pages created in the structure (some nested within others).

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks, that's good to know. Have you tried this with multiple structures at all? I'm wondering whether there are any potential pitfalls with having multiple sections that all use the base URL of `{slug}`  
> **username_1**: I contemplated doing it with multiple structures, but then I decided it was better to use one master structure. If your structures are based on "which nav the link appears in", there's no guarantee that you may or may not add that page to a different nav. And you definitely don't want to have to move your page data between structures, or get creative with how your nav displays.  
> **username_1**: The docs on ["How to create a nav for my Structure section"](http://buildwithcraft.com/help/structure-nav) were incredibly helpful... It's good to know that your generated nav doesn't need to start at the root level.  
> **username_0**: Hmm. That's definitely a possibility - I think it's less confusing than the "single for top page / structure for sub-pages" approach - but I'm pretty keen to keep sections separate if at all possible, rather than lumping them all together...  
> **username_1**: Curious, what are the distinctions between your structures? I thought about having a main "parent" structure, then several key "children" sub-structures... Each child sub-structure would serve the purpose of individual structures. Haven't tested it yet though. **Big benefit...** You can easily share Entry Types anywhere within the overarching structure.  
> **username_2**: Lindsey, do you have an idea on how to add the site's main page to that structure? My first attempt was to simply add an entry with a slug "index" to the top level.  
> **username_1**: @Christian Excellent question... Unfortunately, I don't have a great answer for you. I've used this technique a few times now, and each time I've made the home page a separate Single entry.  

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