Paths tell the browser where a file lives. A website can work on your laptop and fail live when a path points to your computer, has the wrong case, or assumes a URL structure your host does not provide.

Relative paths: best for portable ZIP sites

index.html
assets/site.css
images/logo.svg

<link rel="stylesheet" href="assets/site.css">
<img src="images/logo.svg" alt="Company logo">

These paths are relative to the current HTML file. They are usually the simplest option when a ZIP is deployed at a preview URL, a custom domain, or a subdirectory.

Root-relative paths

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/site.css">

This starts at the domain root. It works only when assets is deployed at that root. It can break if you preview the project under a folder such as /demo/.

Never publish local paths

Wrong: C:\Users\Sam\Desktop\site\logo.png
Wrong: file:///Users/sam/site/assets/site.css
Wrong: /Users/sam/site/assets/site.css

Check every reference

After deployment, open DevTools → Network and reload. Any 404 is a path or filename problem until proven otherwise. Match capitalization exactly: Hero.webp and hero.webp are different on the server.