Directory options directives are directives that can be applied to further restrict access to file and directories. MultiViews is a per-directory option, meaning it can be set with an Options directive within a , or section in httpd.conf, or (if AllowOverride is properly set) in .htaccess files. The effect of MultiViews is as follows: if the server receives a request for /some/dir/foo, if /some/dir has MultiViews enabled, and /some/dir/foo does not exist, then the server reads the directory looking for files named foo.*, and effectively fakes up a type map which names all those files, assigning them the same media types and content-encodings it would have if the client had asked for one of them by name. It then chooses the best match to the client's requirements.