Content Management Systems

Content Management Systems (or CMS) are third-party applications that provide a graphical user interface for adding and editing website content: pages, scripts, files, multimedia content, and so on. The following CMS are the most popular and widely used:

• WordPress - a free and open-source blogging tool.
• Joomla - a free and open-source content management system for publishing web content.
• Drupal - a free and open-source content-management framework

Before you can create a website with a CMS, you need to install the CMS on your hosting account. There are two options available:

• Install a CMS as a web application. All most popular CMS can be installed as web applications using the Plesk interface. To do so, follow these instructions:

1. Go to the Applications tab.
2. Find the CMS you need in the list of available applications, and install it as described in the Web Applications section.
3. Create your website in the CMS. For information about creating websites with your CMS, refer to the relevant documentation.

• If the desired CMS cannot be found on the list of available web applications, you need to download and install it according to the installation instructions provided in the documentation of the CMS of your choice.

Note: You can install a CMS as a web application only if your hosting subscription allows it.

Uploading Content Using FTP

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, a method of transferring files over the Internet. To upload files via FTP, you will need a special program called an FTP client. FileZilla is a free and reliable FTP client. You can download it here:

https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client

Its documentation can be found here:

https://wiki.filezilla-project.org/Documentation

Of course, you are free to use a different FTP client if you choose. To connect to an FTP server, you need the following information:

• FTP server address. The FTP address should be ftp://your-domain-name.com, where your-domain-name.com is your site’s Internet address.
• FTP username. It is identical to your system username. Note that the system username may differ from the username that you use for logging in to Plesk. To find what your system user name is, open the Websites & Domains tab and click Web Hosting Access. You will find it under Username. You can change your system username if you want.
• FTP password. It is identical to your system user password. If you do not know what your system user password is, open the Websites & Domains tab and click Web Hosting Access. You can reset the password under Password.

To publish a website using FTP:

1. Connect to your webspace on the server with an FTP client program, using your FTP account username and password.

   Enable the passive mode if you are behind a firewall. Refer to your FTP client documentation to learn how to enter passive mode.

2. Upload the files and directories of your site to the httpdocs directory. If you use CGI scripts, place them in the cgi-bin directory.
3. Close your FTP session.

You can also set up additional FTP accounts if you need to collaborate on website content with other users. For more information, see the section Adding FTP Accounts.

Uploading Content with File Manager

Watch the video tutorial

To upload a website from your computer to the Plesk server by using File Manager, follow these steps:

1. On your computer, add the folder containing your website’s files to an archive (right-click it and select Send To > Compressed (zipped) Folder) from the context menu.
2. In Plesk Control Panel, open the Files tab, click the httpdocs folder to open it, click Upload Files, select the archive file, and click Open.
3. Once the file has been uploaded, click the checkbox next to it, click the More button, and select the Extract Files option.

If you want to edit pages of your website, you can do it in File Manager. It provides an HTML editor that allows visual editing of HTML pages (without needing to manually type HTML tags). To edit a file in the HTML editor, place the mouse pointer over the file, click the link to open the file's context menu, and select Edit in HTML Editor.

You can also edit files in the File Manager's text editor if you like. To open a file in the text editor, click the link to open the file's context menu, and select Edit in Text Editor.

If you have files or web pages that you want to make inaccessible on the Internet, change these files' access permissions in File Manager. To edit access permissions for a file or a directory, click the link to open the context menu, and select Change Permissions. To learn how to review and edit the permissions, refer to the section Setting File and Directory Access Permissions.

Learn more about uploading and editing website files and folders with File Manager in the Website Content section.