By default, your main website is loaded from the public_html folder of your account. The public_html directory is also called web root folder or document root folder. If you would like to keep your site’s files in a subfolder of the public_html, and do not want the subfolder to appear as a part of the URL to your website, you can mask the subfolder from the URL by placing the following directives in the .htaccess file inside the public_html folder:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain-name.com$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain-name.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !folder/
RewriteRule (.*) /folder/$1 [L]
In the above lines you should replace the following:
domain-name.com – Type your own domain name
folder – Type the name of the subfolder which has the test/development website