Plans supporting hosting Document360 on a sub-directory
Professional | Business | Enterprise |
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What is subfolder hosting?
Subfolder hosting is a type of website hierarchy under a root domain that uses folders to organize content on a website. A subfolder is the same as a subdirectory; the names can be used interchangeably.
The subfolder/subdirectory comes after the root directory or domain name in a URL.
For example, Document360’s root domain is
document360.com
. So, a subfolder/subdirectory path URL might bedocument360.com/docs/
.
Most companies host their documentation under a subfolder/subdirectory on their website domain.
For example:
example.com/docs
,example.com/support
, etc.
This is because hosting a knowledge base on a subdirectory/subfolder of a website (example.com/docs
) rather than a subdomain (docs.example.com
) is better for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
NOTE
Subfolder/subdirectory hosting can be enabled for Document360 provided domains and mapped custom domains.
Enabling Subfolder hosting
To enable the subfolder hosting for your project,
Navigate to Settings () > Knowledge base site > Custom domain > Subfolder hosting tab in the Knowledge base portal.
By default, the Subfolder path is set to /docs.
Turn on the toggle next to "This documentation is hosted on a sub folder."
Custom Subfolder paths
You can also set up your knowledge base on subfolder/subdirectory paths other than /docs
.
For example,
/help
,/support
, etc.
Navigate to Settings () > Knowledge base site > Custom domain > Subfolder hosting tab in the Knowledge base portal.
By default, the Subfolder path is set to /docs.
Clear the Subfolder path field and enter your custom subfolder path (For example,
/help
).Click on the Update button on the right.
This new custom subfolder will only work if the subfolder hosting setting is enabled in your project.
When setting up other paths, add the languages associated with each workspace in your project. This configuration varies depending on the different web servers.
NOTE
For projects configured with custom domain and subfolder hosting, the Article preview option is not supported yet.
Custom Site API paths
For your information (FYI)
The Custom Site API paths feature is available only in KB site 2.0 projects. To migrate from KB site 1.0 to KB site 2.0, read the article on KB site 2.0 migration.
By default, the Site API path is set to /api
. You can customize the Site API path as well from the Subfolder hosting tab in the custom domain settings.
For example, /docs-api
, /api-docs
, etc.
CAUTION
For KB site 2.0 projects, subfolder hosting will work only when both the Subfolder path as well as the Site API path have been defined.
Navigate to Settings () > Knowledge base site > Custom domain > Subfolder hosting tab in the Knowledge base portal.
By default, the Site API path is set to /api.
Clear the Site API path field and enter your custom site API path (For example,
/docs-api
).Click on the Update button on the right.
This new custom site API path will only work if the subfolder hosting setting is enabled in your project.
NOTE
The Custom Site API path is not the path for API Documentation.
Web servers
Here are some of the commonly used web servers
Apache HTTP server
Nginx server
ASP.NET Core server
Microsoft - IIS server
OpenResty server
LiteSpeed server
Cloudflare server
NOTE
What is a web server?
A web server stores and delivers the content for a website – such as text, images, video, and application data – to clients that request it. The most common type of client is a web browser program.
What happens next?
Once the web server is successfully configured, your knowledge base site will be live on your custom subfolder/subdirectory. However, the existing URL for your project will serve the requests.
For example,
example.document360.io
andexample.com/docs
(if/docs
is your folder path) will point to the Knowledge base site.
This will cause duplicate content in Search engines (Google, Bing, etc.). For this, you will need to enable a URL redirect.
NOTE
To enable the redirect from
example.document360.io
toexample.com/docs
, please contact us at support@document360.com.
FAQs
What is a Canonical URL?
A canonical URL is the official link that tells search engines which version of a page to index and display in search results when there are multiple URLs for the same content. This helps prevent duplicate content issues and ensures the preferred URL is ranked properly in search results.
For example:
If your page is accessible through multiple URLs, such as:
https://example.com/page
https://www.example.com/page
https://example.com/page?utm=123
You can set one of them (e.g., https://www.example.com/page
) as the canonical URL to signal search engines to prioritize it.
How can I configure the canonical URL in Document360?
You can use the Canonical domain setting to globally replace the project subdomain with your specified domain for canonical URLs in all articles. This is particularly useful if you want to signal to search engines to index your custom domain (e.g., www.yourdomain.com
) instead of the Document360 domain.
To change the canonical URL globally, follow the steps below:
Navigate to Settings () > Knowledge base site > Custom domain > Subfolder hosting tab in the Knowledge base portal.
Under Subfolder hosting tab, locate the Canonical domain option.
Enter your desired domain (e.g.,
https://www.yourdomain.com
).Click Save to save your changes.