Server Side Includes (SSI) is a basic server-side language, which lets you include text from a given source inside a website. In the most common case, the text from one file is incorporated in a different one, giving a site the feeling it is dynamic. For example, if your website is made of 10 web pages, 5 of them can include the content of some file, like horoscope.txt. If you ever change this text file, the new content will appear on all of the five pages, which will permit you to revise your site faster and easier than if you had to modify an element of all 5 web pages. Server Side Includes is occasionally utilized to include the output of basic commands, scripts or functions as well - a hit counter that is displayed on the website, the present time and date or the visitor's IP address. Every webpage that works by using SSI will need to have a special extension - .shtml.

Server Side Includes in Hosting

All Linux hosting services we offer support Server Side Includes, so you're able to add dynamic elements to your static site that you host on our cloud system. By making an empty .htaccess file and typing in a few lines of code inside, you're able to activate SSI for a domain name or maybe a subdomain. The file involved must be in the specific folder where you are going to use SSI and you will get the code inside our Frequently Asked Questions section, which means you don't need any coding expertise. Our 24/7 technical support team will also be able to help you with enabling Server Side Includes if you're not sure what to do. You should furthermore remember to modify the extension of all your files that are going to use SSI from .html to .shtml and ensure that the links on your website point to the right files.

Server Side Includes in Semi-dedicated Hosting

It shall not take you more than a minute to enable Server Side Includes if you have a semi-dedicated server package through our company. When you choose to activate this function, you will need to make an .htaccess file in the main folder for the domain or subdomain in which you would like SSI to be active. In this file, you need to copy some code, which you'll find in the FAQ article we have dedicated to SSI. You will find the latter in the Help area of your Hosting Control Panel, so you don't need any prior knowledge about these types of matters. The only 2 things you should take care of are renaming all of web pages that will use Server Side Includes from .html to .shtml and updating all of the links in your website, so that they point to the updated files.