Check if homepage using window.location

Question

Is it possible to check if I'm on the homepahge/index of a site using window.location?

I'm currently checking url using

window.location.href.indexOf("/category/something")

but how can I check for homepage? It doesn't contain any segments.

Note: I don't know what the homepage URL will be so I can't use for example a url name like window.location.href.indexOf("myhomepage.html")

Update: The only clue that I have is that the homepage has no URL segments.

If you don't know anything about the URL of your homepage then there is no way to test if you are on it by examining the URL. — Quentin, Feb 08 '15 at 13:54
The URL doesn't necessarily represents the actual page/file/action the server is serving/invoking. Typically, you'll need to rely on the application code to provide this information (and possibly expose it to the client-side as well). — haim770, Feb 08 '15 at 13:54
possible duplicate of [Get host name in JavaScript](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1368264/get-host-name-in-javascript) — isherwood, Feb 08 '15 at 13:55
does the page (header/footer maybe) contain a link to the homepage? If so, grab that and compare href to window.location.href — firien, Feb 08 '15 at 13:58
@isherwood no I'm no trying to get the host name. How would that tell me if i'm on the homepage? — CyberJunkie, Feb 08 '15 at 14:06
@firien that seems to be the best way to check. If you post an answer with example i'll vote your answer. Thanks! — CyberJunkie, Feb 08 '15 at 14:10

Nick Jennings · Answer 1 · 2020-01-16T14:57:10.010

The term homepage itself is a fairly vague construct and not something that is technically identifiable. You could have several different landing pages depending on your screen size, device, credentials, browser, date/time, geolocation, etc. etc.

The only way you can ensure you are on one of these landing pages is to be in control during the initial GET request to the domain (e.g. http://www.example.com).

So, if you're already on the page, there's no real way to know how you got there and if this is the default page provided from that domain, though there are hacks you could try to get a general (albeit very error-prone) idea.

For example, you could compile a list of common homepage paths:

var homepages = [ '/', 'index.html', 'index.htm', 'index.php', 'main.html', 'main.htm', 'homepage.html', 'index2.htm' ];

Then compare to the provided window.location.pathname:

if (homepages.indexOf(window.location.pathname) >= 0) {
    // we might be on a "homepage"
}

Thanks for the answer. I think one very obvious clue is no segments in the URL. — CyberJunkie, Feb 08 '15 at 14:17
Yeah, that's the ideal situation, but there are plenty of sites that don't follow this convention. It's all about your use-case. — Nick Jennings, Feb 08 '15 at 14:20

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 09 '19 at 15:35

Many site's homepage, including stackoverflow contain a link to that same homepage.

// browser url = http://example.com
<a href="http://example.com">my site</a>

If you have access to the source, you can identify this link server-side

<a id="homepage" href="http://example.com"/>my site</a>

So, to check if you are on the homepage:

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function(e) {
  var link = document.querySelector('#homepage');
  if (link.href == window.location.href) {
    //i'm on the homepage
  }
})

So i just saw your update to the question. if you know there are no url segments, wouldn't window.location.pathname always be "/"

Justin Carroll · Answer 3 · 2015-02-08T14:25:47.200

If you simply did window.location and checked the args in there, if there are no pages/paths appended, url matches origin, etc., would that not be good enough to detect -- Idk, I've never had a need to do this? This might also work for .NET and 'other' types of HTML naming conventions (i.e. index.html vs index.htm). Additionally, if someone changes the doc root, or a home page pointer, you'd more or less know (aka not care) because window.location you can check the following:

window.location
Location {replace: function, assign: function, ancestorOrigins: DOMStringList, origin: "http://stackoverflow.com", hash: ""…}ancestorOrigins: DOMStringListassign: function () { [native code] }hash: ""host: "stackoverflow.com"hostname: "stackoverflow.com"href: "http://stackoverflow.com/"origin: "http://stackoverflow.com"pathname: "/"port: ""protocol: "http:"reload: function reload() { [native code] }replace: function () { [native code] }search: ""toString: function toString() { [native code] }valueOf: function valueOf() { [native code] }__proto__: Location

which has path = '/'. That's pretty indicative of homepage'ish'ness.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 08 '15 at 13:56

0

A JavaScript knows only it's current context. It has no idea where in a site's hierarchy it is, so no, you can't check if you're on the homepage without already knowing the homepage's URL

answered Feb 08 '15 at 13:56

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Check if homepage using window.location

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