Why do I see the default welcome page

When you create a new hosting account with a new domain, it’s automatically created with a new welcome page. This page has content like this:

Let’s Make Something Awesome

Your account is all set up, it’s time to build your website!

If you’re not sure why you see this page, this article may help you.

What does this say about my domain name

Like the page says: your account is all set up.

The welcome page is loaded from the hosting account you’ve created. So if you see this page, it means your domain name is online, you are connected to your hosting account, and your hosting account is working correctly.

When you see this page, your next step is to upload a website. You can do so by migrating an existing website, or by building or installing a new one using Softaculous, a website builder or other software of your choice.

I already uploaded a website, why don’t I see it

If you’ve already uploaded your website files, you may still see the default welcome page. Here are some reasons why you may see this page instead of your website content.

Make sure to upload your files to the htdocs folder

When uploading website content, please make sure you’re uploading it to the folder called htdocs. Other hosting platforms may have a folder called public_html or www which is used for website files. On InfinityFree, this folder is called htdocs.

Files uploaded outside the htdocs folder are automatically deleted, so please make sure to upload all content to the htdocs folder of your domain.

Make sure to upload files DIRECTLY to the htdocs folder

In addition to not uploading your files outside the htdocs folder, you should also make sure to not upload your files to a subdirectory of the htdocs folder. If you upload your website files to a subdirectory, the server doesn’t check the subdirectory for your website files.

So please make sure your website files are placed directly in the htdocs folder, not in a subdirectory.

Make sure your website has a valid index page

If you link directly to a file on your account (e.g. http://example.com/about.html), then the specific file will be loaded (about.html in that case). But what happens if you don’t link directly to a file, but to a directory instead (e.g. http://example.com/blog/ or just http://example.com/)?

In that case, the server will look for a valid “index file”. An index file is typically file with the name index.php, index.html, index.htm or index2.html. When trying to open a folder, the server will look for one of those files, and open the first one shown here.

If you have set up your website correctly, there should be a file like that directly in the htdocs folder. If not, it will load the index2.html file, which is the welcome page.

Please note that file names on InfinityFree (and almost all hosting providers) are cAsE sEnSiTiVe, so please make sure the file is not called Index.php or index.HTML, as these files will not be loaded.

You can also customize which file is loaded by default using .htaccess rules. By adding a rule like DirectoryIndex home.php index.php index.html, the server will try a home.php file before trying the index.php and index.html files. Learn more about how to add custom .htaccess rules.

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