Can I use SSI commands?

SSI, or "Server-Side Includes", are available with all accounts. To enable server-side parsing of any document, at least one of the following conditions must be met.

Important Note - If you try more than one of the following techniques at the same time, you may encounter strange results. Please do not try them all at once! For example, if you use .shtml files and mark them executable, your files will not be treated as dynamic, and reloading will not cause the server to re-interpret their SSI. If you are trying to serve dynamic content with SSI, such as rotating ads, this will obviously be a problem.

1. The file must have an extension of .shtml. This is the recommended method of enabling SSI. Note that the file index.shtml is searched for in a directory if index.html is not found. If you have active links from other sites that specifically mention index.html, however, this won't be a good solution for you.
2. In unusual cases, you may want every .html file to be parsed for SSI. This can be done with the following command in your .htaccess file:

   AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .html

   Note: Please do not do this unless you genuinely intend to use SSI in all of your files. The unnecessary overhead of parsing the files that do not actually use SSI will slow the server down and make your site somewhat less responsive. Also, don't do this for .shtml files; it will make them stop working!

The SSI commands are documented on the Apache Web site. We are currently reviewing a few packages that offer enhanced SSI commands. In most cases, however, something like PHP/FI is more appropriate for advanced server-side operations.