Parsing HTML through PHP in Plesk

Some users will want to parse HTML through the PHP parser because one of their applications requires it, or because they think it’s a good idea. Parsing regular static content through PHP is not recommended as it will cause a performance hit on the server each time a static page is loaded.

Unfortunately, enabling this in conjunction with Plesk will cause problems with the Plesk web statistics. Since the PHP parsing is disabled for the /plesk-stat/ directories, Apache will mark the page as a PHP page and your browser will attempt to download it rather than display it.

To fix this issue, simply add the following LocationMatch to the bottom of your Apache configuration:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html
<LocationMatch "/plesk-stat/(.*)">
AddType text/html .html
</LocationMatch>

This will force Apache to serve HTML files from /plesk-stat/ as text/html rather than application/x-http-php. Your web statistics will display in the browser rather than downloading as a PHP file.