Website preview in Plesk does not work as expected: Redirects to the domain itself

Symptoms

• When opening a website Plesk preview URL such as http://203.0.113.2/plesk-site-preview/example.com/https/203.0.113.2/ (Linux) or http://203.0.113.2/plesk-site-preview/example.com/ (Windows), it redirects to the domain of the website and thus the website is not displayed via its preview URL, but its displayed via its regular domain instead.

Cause

The .htaccess (Linux) or web.config (Windows) or any other redirection rule is configured on the website (or a specific access URL is set in the website database) which redirects to domain root directory.

Any website script may be designed to be accessible only on a special URL or domain, due to which its internal redirection functionality will direct attempts for access via any other URL to that special URL. This is very common for WordPress websites and is therefore expected behavior.

Resolution

If it is mandatory to see a website preview by using the specific Plesk website preview option and its generated preview URL for any reason, you may try doing the following:

Temporarily disable the website's own .htaccess (Linux) or web.config (Windows) file (located in the main directory of the website) or any other redirect rules that may be set on the side of the web servers that are serving the website.

Alternatively, if a URL that is set on the side of the website database is responsible for the behavior, you must edit the entries within the website database that are responsible for the redirection to use the preview URL that is generated by Plesk.