Placing an image file as your default homepage

When designing your website, you may want to create a custom Coming Soon or Under Construction page. Some people, however, may want to have a simple image file as their homepage. To do this, you will need to first upload the image to your account, and then set the account to look for that image instead of the normal default index file. Below are the instructions on how to do this.

Note that this is not recommended due to the way different browsers will display the image. The preferred method is to create a custom Coming Soon page and insert your image as part of the page. This way it will display the same in all browsers.

How to place an image file as your default landing page

1. Log into your cPanel dashboard
2. Upload your image file via the File Manager. Be sure you select the checkbox for Show Hidden Files (dotfiles). It is highly recommended you upload the image into the root folder for your domain. For the primary domain, this will be the public_html. To enter that folder, select the Web Root radio button.
3. Once the image is uploaded into the main folder, find the .htaccess file. Highlight the file and click on the Edit tool located in the toolbar across the top of the page. Another popup may appear, simply click the Edit button to continue.
4. Once in the editor, at the top of the file, enter the command DirectoryIndex <image file name> where the <image file name> is the name of the image you want to display. For example, if you upload an image named comingsoon.jpg your code would look like the sample below:
   
   DirectoryIndex comingsoon.jpg
5. Once you have entered the code, click on the Save Changes button to finalize the change. You can now visit your website and see the image as your homepage.