Server Side Includes (SSI) is a widely used server-side scripting language, which can be used to add the content of one file inside another file. It is utilized mainly with online content and it can help to make a static HTML website much more dynamic. If you need to have a daily quote displayed on a variety of webpages on your site, as an example, you can create a text file and switch the quote within it daily. All webpages where this file is included will display the updated quote, so you'll not have to edit every one of them manually every time. SSI can also be used to contain the output of basic functions rather than a static file - for instance, the viewer's IP address, a hit counter or maybe the current date and time. In this manner, you can make your site look more professional and more appealing to the site visitors. Pages that employ SSI use a .shtml extension.

Server Side Includes in Shared Website Hosting

It will be possible to use Server Side Includes with all shared website hosting plans that we offer and enable it independently for every domain name or subdomain within your hosting account. This can be accomplished when using an .htaccess file, which needs to be placed in the folder where you want to use SSI and you have to put a few lines of code in that file. You can get the code within our Knowledgebase section, so you can just copy and paste it, as you do not need any programming expertise to benefit from all of the capabilities that our services contain. In case you have already built your website and you wish to use Server Side Includes afterwards, you need to ensure that you rename the files from .html to .shtml and correct the links on the website, or else SSI won't work.

Server Side Includes in Semi-dedicated Servers

It won't take you over a minute to enable Server Side Includes when you have a semi-dedicated server plan through us. When you choose to enable this feature, you must make an .htaccess file in the root folder for the domain or subdomain in which you want SSI to be enabled. In that file, you must copy and paste some code, which you can see in the FAQ article we have devoted to SSI. You will find the latter within the Help section of your Hosting Control Panel, so you do not need any prior knowledge of such matters. The only 2 things you need to take care of are renaming all webpages that will use Server Side Includes from .html to .shtml and replacing each of the links on your website, to ensure that they lead to the renamed files.