Host.ie Irish web hosting Help Section

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 or click the Redirect URL icon (direct links).

3.      If you have chosen the Web Options icon, then here are the steps:

a.      On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the Redirect option and click the Add icon next to it.

4.      If you have chosen the Redirect URL, you’ll see the following:

5.      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.

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.      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).

6.      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.

7.      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).

Note: 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:

o        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.

o        Type: Specify if the text in the previous field must be treated as a URL (Redirect) or as a text message (Message).

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.      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.      Click the Edit icon next to the domain you need.

4.      On the Web Service page, scroll down to find the MIME Type option and click the Add icon on its right.

5.      On the page that appears, enter the extension for this file type:

Begin file extension with a dot. The MIME type must comply with MIME type specifications, e.g.: text/rtf or video/mpeg.