How to Set Default Index Page in Plesk

Plesk is a powerful control panel that allows a system administrator to manage servers. It also allows system administrators to create accounts for the end-users. As everyone uses different programming languages to develop a web application, it is important to set an order for Default Index Page. It simply means that if your index page is “index.html” and your secondary index page is “index.php”, you can set an order in which Plesk will find and display the web page.

For example, let’s say you have set “index.html” as first priority and “index.php” as a second priority. Whenever a visitor will visit your domain name in a web browser, The web server will first look for the “index.html” page. If found, It will return the content of the “index.html” page back to the web browser. If “index.html” is not available, The web browser will look for the “index.php” page and if found, it will return the content of that page.

You can set the Default Index pages in any order. So, If your application is built in ASP, you can set “index.asp” as first priority. This directive is broadly called the Directory Index. In this tutorial, I will show you how to set a proper Default Index pages in Plesk. So, Let’s get started.

Set the Default Index Page in Plesk

First of all, Log in to your Plesk account and click on the Websites & Domains option from the left sidebar. Just as highlighted in the following screenshot.

On this page, you will find a list of websites available in the account. Click on the Show More option for the website you want to modify. See the following screenshot for reference.

From the list of options, find and click on the Virtual Directories option that looks like the part highlighted in the following image.

In the virtual directories section, Click on the Directory Properties option to finally set the Default Index page.

On this page, look for the Documents section and make sure the default documents are enabled. Then, click on the Default documents search order and select the ones that you want to set as default. You can add as many Default indexes as you want and you can also change the order.

So, If your application is made in PHP, make sure that the first priority in the order goes to “index.php”. Similarly, If your application is made in ASP, the first priority should go to “index.asp” or “index.aspx”.

Finally, click on the OK button given after the form to apply changes. Now, The web server is configured to look for the Default Index Pages set in the order.

It is a fairly easy process. And it is important to set the Default Index File Order to make sure that your application will run perfectly on the webserver. If you are facing any issues with the tutorial, please let us know in the comment section given below and we will help you as soon as possible.