{"id":535,"date":"2017-03-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.hostinger.io\/hostinger-tutorials\/%category\/htaccesshow-to-change-your-default-index-page-in-htaccess\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T19:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:20:09","slug":"change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/ng\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","title":{"rendered":"How to use directoryindex and .htaccess to change your website’s default index page"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, we will show you how to change and modify the first page of your website using the DirectoryIndex<\/strong> command in the .htaccess<\/strong> file. Let’s check it out!<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>

\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>

How does the index file work?<\/h2>

When you open a website on any browser, a typical web server will look for a file called index.html<\/strong> or index.php<\/strong> in its public_html<\/strong> files to load and deliver that file’s content to your browser.<\/p>

DirectoryIndex<\/strong> is a command that lets you modify the index files of your website easily in the .htaccess<\/strong> file. It’s used to specify which files should be loaded first by the page when your website is accessed.<\/p>

You can also set up a second, third, and more files to be loaded by the server next in case there’s any error preventing the designated first page to load.<\/p>

Locating and accessing the .htaccess file<\/h2>

The first thing you need to do is locate or create a new .htaccess<\/strong> file in the WordPress root directory or in our case, public_html<\/strong>. Here’s how:<\/p>

    \n
  1. Login to Hostinger’s hPanel, so to your site’s dashboard, and navigate to Files<\/strong> → File Manager<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. You can also configure an FTP client<\/a> such as FileZilla<\/a> to access the directory from a local computer.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Once you’re in the public_html<\/strong> directory, locate the .htaccess<\/strong> file. If it doesn’t exist, you can quickly create one by going to the upper part of the page and selecting the New File<\/strong> function.
    \"this<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Once you’re prompted with a file creation box, enter .htaccess<\/strong>, then press Create<\/strong> to save the file.<\/li>\n<\/ol>

    It’s worth mentioning that locating the .htaccess file<\/a> on cPanel follows a similar process.<\/p>

    Editing .htaccess to add the DirectoryIndex command<\/h2>

    To modify the first page loaded by your website using the DirectoryIndex<\/strong> command, follow these steps:<\/p>

      \n
    1. Head to .htaccess<\/strong> and right-click to Edit<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Paste the following code at the top of the file to configure your desired index page:<\/li>\n<\/ol>
      DirectoryIndex example.html<\/pre>
      Remember to replace example.html<\/strong> with the page you want to use.<\/p>
      You can also list more than one file in the configuration. In this example, we add first.html<\/strong>, index.html<\/strong>, and index.php<\/strong> to the list.<\/p>
      \"this<\/figure><\/div>
      Your specified index files will be read and checked from left to right. First, the server will look for first.html, <\/strong>and if it doesn’t find a file with that name, it continues to index.html<\/strong> and so on.<\/p>
      You can also use this command to set up a temporary error page where your visitors will be directed to in case your page unexpectedly crashes. Here’s an example:<\/p>
      DirectoryIndex index.php page-down.php<\/pre>
      Once the desired code is added, don’t forget to save the changes, and the configuration will take effect.<\/p>
      Congratulations, you have successfully changed the default index page of your website by manipulating the .htaccess file!<\/p>
      \"Hostinger<\/a><\/figure>
      Conclusion<\/h2>
      In this tutorial, we have learned how to effectively change the first page on your website using DirectoryIndex<\/strong> in the .htaccess <\/strong>file. In case you have any other cool tips that you want to share with us, you are welcome to do so in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      In this article, we will show you how to change and modify the first page of your website using the DirectoryIndex command in the .htaccess file. Let’s check it out! How does the index file work? When you open a website on any browser, a typical web server will look for a file called index.html […]<\/p>\n
      Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":145390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_title":"%title%","rank_math_description":"Want to change your default index page on your website? Check out our tutorial and learn how to do it easily with directoryindex in .htaccess!","rank_math_focus_keyword":"directoryindex","footnotes":""},"categories":[22630],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technical-aspects"],"hreflangs":[{"locale":"en-US","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"fr-FR","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/fr\/tutoriels\/changer-page-accueil-htaccess","default":0},{"locale":"id-ID","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/id\/tutorial\/cara-mengganti-file-index-dengan-htaccess","default":0},{"locale":"en-UK","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/uk\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"en-MY","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/my\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"en-PH","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ph\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"en-IN","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/in\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"en-CA","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ca\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"en-AU","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/au\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0},{"locale":"en-NG","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/change-index-page-in-htaccess-with-directoryindex","default":0}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145389,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/145389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ng\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}