The Pagehaus blog

Renamed a page? Old links can now find the new one

2026-11-02T14:55:00Z

Rename about-us.html to about.html and every link to the old address breaks: the ones in Google, in old social posts, on other people's websites. Visitors land on "not found", and the search ranking the old page earned goes nowhere.

Now you can send them on. Pagehaus sites can have redirects, on every plan.

One click from your broken links

Your site's Analytics tab lists addresses visitors followed a link to but that don't exist. Next to each one there's now Redirect this address…. Pick the page that replaced it, and that's it: the next visitor following the old link lands on the new page.

Or write them yourself

Behind that button is a plain text file named _redirects at the top of your site, one rule per line: the old address, then the new one.

/about-us        /about.html
/blog/*          /posts/:splat
/news/:year/:slug  /posts/:year-:slug.html
/old-pricing     /pricing.html     302

A rule is a 301 (moved for good) unless it says 302 (moved for now). A 301 tells search engines the page moved, so its ranking moves with it.
* matches the rest of an address, and :splat puts it in the new one, so one line can move a whole section.
Matching ignores capital letters and a slash at the end, because old links come spelled every way.
It's the same format Netlify and Cloudflare Pages use, so a _redirects file you already have works here too.

It can't break a working page

A rule only applies where there's nothing else: no file at that address. If the page is still there, visitors see the page. A typo in your rules can't take a working page offline, and to redirect an address you remove what's there.

Lines that can't be read are skipped, and your site's Files tab tells you which and why. If you work on your own computer, pagehaus serve follows your rules as Pagehaus does, and pagehaus check points out mistakes and rules that go round in a circle.

Moving a site to Pagehaus

This is what redirects are really for. Moving from WordPress, Wix or another host usually changes your addresses, and redirects keep the old ones working. We're writing a full guide to moving a site without losing your search rankings; until then, the help page has the steps.

Redirects to other websites (sending /shop to your shop, say) are on the Personal and Pro plans.

— Ademar

Edit your site like a document, with CraftPages

2026-11-02T14:54:00Z

One question we hear a lot: "I built my client a site in plain HTML. How do they change the opening hours without calling me?"

CraftPages is a good answer. It's a free, open-source desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, made by Vitalii Kiiko at MooMoo Web Studio. It opens a plain HTML site from a folder and lets you edit it like a document: click a heading and type. The layout and the code stay exactly as you wrote them.

We tried it from start to finish with a Pagehaus site, and it works as it is.

Publishing to Pagehaus

CraftPages publishes over SFTP, which every Pagehaus site has. In App settings, add a server connection:

Server: sftp.pagehaus.app
Port: 2022 (not the 22 it suggests)
User name: your site's name
Password: your Pagehaus password

Then, in Project settings → Deploy, choose that connection and leave Folder on the server empty. Press Publish site and your pages go up. After that, each publish uploads only the files that changed.

Our step-by-step guide has screenshots of each screen.

Handing a site to a client

This is what CraftPages is made for. Build the site your way, then install CraftPages on your client's computer with the same folder. They can change text, images and blog posts, and the code editor stays hidden unless you turn it on.

On a Personal or Pro plan, give them an SFTP login of their own, which can be limited to one folder, so you can take it away later without changing yours.

Two safety nets

CraftPages keeps a history of every publish, and Pagehaus keeps its own version history of your files. A mistake can be undone from either side.

If you change the address of a blog post in CraftPages, it writes the move to a _redirects file, which Pagehaus follows, so old links to the post keep working.

Thanks to Vitalii for making it, and for making it free.

— Ademar

A blog on your plain HTML site, without WordPress

2026-11-02T14:53:00Z

The page you're reading is plain HTML. It was written in Markdown in the Pagehaus dashboard, and pressing Publish turned it into a page, added it to the list of posts, and updated the RSS feed. There's no WordPress behind it, no database and no plugins.

Every Pagehaus site can have a blog like this one, on every plan.

How it works

Open your site's Blog tab, write a post and press Publish.

Write in Markdown, with a live preview in your site's own design. Paste or drag images straight into the text.
Publishing makes plain HTML pages: the post, a list of posts, a page for each tag, an RSS feed and a sitemap.
Drafts stay private until you publish them.
Every publish saves a version first, so you can undo it.
Show your latest posts on your home page with one line.

If your site has a shared header and footer, the blog's pages use them, with your stylesheet, so the blog fits in with the pages you already have.

Your posts are files

Each post is a Markdown file in your site, and each published page is an HTML file next to your others. You can download them, edit them anywhere, keep them in Git, or take them to another host. Nothing is locked in a database.

Writing with an assistant

If you've connected Pagehaus to Claude or ChatGPT, you can ask it to write a post, edit one, or publish your drafts. It uses the same Blog tab you do, so what it writes shows up there for you to check.

Starting fresh

Making a new site? The Blog template comes with a blog and three sample posts, so you can see how it fits together before you write your own.

How the blog works · Blog hosting

— Ademar

Visitor counters are back

2026-11-02T14:52:00Z

Remember the counter at the bottom of every home page in 1999? Little digits in boxes, a "You are visitor number" in front, and the quiet thrill of watching it go up.

You can put one on your Pagehaus site now, with one line:

You are visitor number <!--#counter -->

That shows the number as plain text, in your page's own font and colours: "You are visitor number 12,345".

Digits in boxes

For the real thing, pick a theme:

<!--#counter theme="odometer" -->

classic: white digits in black boxes.
odometer: digits like an old car's mileage counter.
led: glowing red digits.

Each takes your colours, size, font and corners: color="#f4e7c5" background="saddlebrown". Still have a set of 90s counter GIFs? Put them in your site as 0.gif to 9.gif and the counter uses those instead.

The counter maker shows each look as you change it, and gives you the line to copy.

Honest numbers

Old counters went up every time someone pressed reload. This one counts each visitor once a day, and robots don't count at all, the same way your site's Analytics tab counts visitors.

There's no script on your page and no cookie in your visitor's browser: the number is written into the page as it's sent. Screen readers hear the number once, not each box.

Bringing your old number

Moving a site that already had a counter? Start where it left off:

<!--#counter start="48210" -->

Counters work on every plan, Free included. All the settings are here.

What was on your first home page? A counter, a guestbook, an "under construction" GIF? We'd like to know.

— Ademar

Why we made Pagehaus

2026-11-02T14:51:39Z

A website can still be a folder of files. An index.html, a stylesheet, a few images. Open it in a browser and it works. Put it on a server and it works for everyone.

Somewhere along the way that stopped being the obvious choice. Hosting turned into build steps, Git repositories, plugins to update and dashboards full of things a small site never needs. If you wrote your site by hand, had an AI assistant make it, or kept one from 2009 that still works, the places to put it online either want you to become a developer or want to sell you a website builder.

We made Pagehaus for that folder of files.

What it is

You upload your files and they're live at yourname.pagehaus.site, with HTTPS. Drag them into the browser, use FileZilla or any SFTP app, run one command, or let Claude or ChatGPT publish them for you. There's nothing to install, build or update, and the files we serve are the ones you uploaded.

Around that, the things a small site keeps needing are built in:

Your own domain, with HTTPS set up for you.
Contact forms that email you, without code.
A blog, written in Markdown and published as plain HTML pages. This one is.
One header and footer for every page, with Server Side Includes.
Visitor numbers without cookies, so you don't need a cookie banner.
Version history, so a mistake is never permanent.
Password-protected pages, for client previews and drafts.

One site is free, with no card. Your own domain starts at $4 a month.

What it isn't

Pagehaus doesn't run server code: no PHP, no Node, no databases. That's a choice. It's what keeps a site fast, safe and cheap to keep online for years, and it's what lets us give away a free plan.

We also won't make your site depend on us. Your files are yours, in the formats everyone uses, and you can copy them off over SFTP and take them anywhere, at any time.

What's on this blog

New features as they arrive, guides for the things people ask us about most (moving a site without losing your search rankings is next), and now and then a site made on Pagehaus.

If you have a folder of files waiting for a home, start here. And if something's missing, tell us: support@pagehaus.app, or r/pagehaus.

— Ademar