I've used a symbolic link to point a folder to a file (e.g., ln -s symlink catalog/vendor/file.html). Then when I enter my url with the symbolic link in a browser (e.g., www[dot]domain[dot]com/symlink) the web server lists the page as text rather than displaying the page (i.e., executing the html).
I use a number of symbolic links on our webite, but I normally point to another folder -- and that works fine.
I've checked the file permissions and they seem fine.
Any idea why the contents of the file is listed as text rather than the html executed?
First, lack of an extension symlink.html to tell the server it is html. Second, did you put a content type in the <HEAD> using equiv.?