Manipulating Pages

This document introduces you to the tools that enhance navigation between the pages of your site. These are:

• Redirect URL to redirect visitors from one page to another;
• Directory Indexes to specify what files will be treated as index pages;
• Error Pages to configure error pages that are shown when the requested pages fail to open;
• Server Side Imagemap to add links to parts of your images;
• MIME Types to specify the MIME type for a particular file extension.

Redirect URL

Use this feature to redirect your visitors from one web page to another or even to a different website.

To create a redirect in a Unix-based account, do the following:

1. Select Quick Access in the Account menu.
2. Click the Web Options icon.
3. Click the Edit icon next to the domain you need.
4. On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the Redirect option and click the Add icon next to it.
5. Agree with the charges.
6. On the page that appears, create the redirect rule.

Unix-based accounts

Entering http://www.examples.com/products into the Redirect from field and http://www.examples.com?param1=yes in the to field, will take all the http://www.examples.com/products visitors to the http://www.examples.com?param1=yes page.

If you leave the Redirect from field empty, visitors will be redirected from any location in the site. In the to field, you can enter URLs with parameters, as illustrated in the screenshot above.

Leave Redirect status as is unless you want to change the default:

• Permanent
  returns a permanent redirect status (301) indicating that the resource has moved permanently.
• Temporary
  returns a temporary redirect status (302). This is the default and indicates to the client that the resource has moved temporarily.
• See other
  returns a "See Other" status (303) indicating that the resource has been replaced.
• Gone
  will cause a visitor's browser display "The requested resource is no longer available on this server and there is no forwarding address. Please remove all references to this resource." message when trying to go to the 'to' URL..

Windows-based accounts

In Windows plans, redirect works in a slightly different manner:

•  The exact URL entered above
  redirects requests for any files in the indicated directory to one file. For example, to redirect all requests for products.html file to the following URL: 'www.example.net', enter www.example.net/products.html in the To field and select this option.
  You can redirect requests to URLs with parameters, for example www.examples.net/?param1=yes
  *Note: you can redirect requests for files and directories both to your own site and to any other external URL.
• A directory below this one
  redirects a parent directory to a child directory.
  - For example, to redirect your 'examples.net/products' directory to a subdirectory named 'news', enter 'excample.net/products/news' in the 'to' text box and select this option. Without this option, the Web server will continually map the parent to itself.
• A permanent redirection for this resource
  sends the following message to the client: '301 Permanent Redirect'. Redirects are considered temporary, and the client browser receives the following message: '302 Temporary Redirect'. Some browsers can use the '301 Permanent Redirect' message as the signal to permanently change a URL, such as a bookmark.

Directory Indexes

This tool allows you to set your own index pages instead of those specified in the default settings. In other words, you can tell your visitors' browsers which page to load as they hit your domain. Usually, it's /index.html by default, but you can set any other custom welcome page.

Example: If a visitor goes to your site http://www.example.com, the first page to open will be http://www.example.com/index.html. However, if you set /welcome.html as the directory index, the page to open will be http://www.example.com/welcome.html.

Warning: your custom index pages won't add to the defaults; they will replace them. Therefore, make sure to enter the full list of indexes you would like to have in your configuration.

To set your custom directory indexes, do the following:

1. Select Quick Access in the Account menu.
2. Click the Web Options icon on the page that shows.
3. Click the Edit icon next to the domain you need.
4. On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the Directory Indexes option and turn it on.
5. Agree with the charges.
6. In the box that appears, enter the names for files that will be treated as indexes. Put file names in the descending order of priority and separate them with spaces (e.g. index.html cgi.bin about.html).

   

7. Skip this step if you are using a Windows-based plan.
   At the top of the Web Service page, click the Apply link for the Server configuration to change. The changes will take effect within 15 minutes.
8. To edit the list you have made, click the Edit icon next to the Directory Indexes option: with spaces (e.g. index.html cgi.bin about.html).

   

   If you are using a Unix-based plan, click the Apply link at the top of the Web Service page.

Error Pages

Use this utility to define what will be done if a requested page on your site is missing or fails to open for any other reason. In order to specify your own ErrorDocuments, you need to be slightly familiar with the server returned error codes:

To configure Error Pages, do the following:

1. Select Quick Access in the Account menu.
2. Click the Web Options icon on the page that shows.
3. Click the Edit icon next to the domain you need.
4. On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the Error option and click the Add icon on its right.
5. In the form that appears, enter the error document settings:

For Unix accounts:

• Error Document Code: choose the one you need from the drop-down box.
• Message or URL: Enter the message the visitor will get or the URL of the page that the visitor will be taken to if the requested page is not found.
• Type: Specify if the text in the previous field must be treated as a URL (Redirect) or as a text message (Message).

For Windows accounts
Users will get a slightly different form to enter the path to the custom error page.
* Note that the path should be relative to the home directory, not to the virtual host directory.

If you check "FILE":
- only static error page files can be used;
- the same error page files for this domain can be shared with other account domains.
For instance, with the following file path, all account domains will share this error page: pages\404_error.html
- use the "\" character as a delimiter in the file path;
- do not start the file path with "\".

If you check "URL":
- it will allow you to use scripts (php/ASP) to dynamically generate error pages (alternatively, use static error page files for each type of error page);
- error page files for this domain can't be shared with other domains;
- "Path to Custom Error page" must be relative to the virtual host and start with "/".

Server Side Imagemap

This feature allows your server to regard files with a specific extension as map files. In other words, the server checks the file with the specified extension to define the links of an image (unlike a client-side image map, which uses the info inserted into the HTML code) and reports back to the browser where to go.

To add an imagemap file extension, do the following:

1. Select Quick Access in the Account menu.
2. Click the Web Options icon on the page that shows.
3. Click the Edit icon next to the domain you need.
4. On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the Server Side Imagemap option and click the Add icon on its right.
5. Agree with the charges.
6. Enter the file extension beginning with a dot:

   

MIME Types

This utililty allows you to define file formats that are not defined in web browsers. This enables the browser to display or output files that are not in HTML format, just like it displays simple text files, .gif graphics files and PostScript files.

To add a definition for your own file format, do the following:

1. Select Quick Access in the Account menu.
2. Click the Web Options icon on the page that shows.
3. If you have several domains, click the Edit icon next to the target domain.
4. On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the MIME Type option and click the Add icon on its right.
5. Agree with the charges.
6. On the page that appears, enter the extension for this file type: