title: Why put the _site-directory of a Jekyll site in .gitignore?
body: <p>The documentation of Jekyll tells me, that the _site-directory of a Jekyll site contains the compiled version of the site I have created after running </p>
  
  <pre><code>Jekyll build
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Several articles recommend, that I include the _site-directory in my .gitignore-file because "it just contains the compiled version of my site". (that's what some articles recommend. So, I am not sure if I don't understand some concept of Jekyll or some concept of Git.</p>
  
  <p>If the _site-directory contains the compiled version of a site, shouldn't that be the thing that is on the server the provides the final website? I do understand why you put source code on github and what to do with it, but in the case of github pages, Github is not a versioning system but a file hosting system and the file hosting system should host compiled versions of my work to provide it via MyUsername.github.io to users, right?</p>
  
  <p>My question is: shouldn't it be only the _site-directory of my Jekyll website that I deploy to Github because that should be the compiled source code that github provides to users? So, shouldn't I put anything else in the .gitignore-file EXCEPT the _site-directory?</p>
  
  <p>If I got this all wrong: what is the point in compiling my website via</p>
  
  <pre><code>Jekyll build
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>if I don't use the compiled source code for anything?</p>