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URL Rewriting and Redirection Using the IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module

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LANGUAGES: C#

ASP.NET VERSIONS: ALL

 

More Smart SEO

URL Rewriting and Redirection Using the IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module

 

By Jeffrey Hasan

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become the major driver for Uniform Resource Locator (URL) rewriting in Web sites. URL rewriting involves intercepting an incoming HTTP request and remapping the original URL request to an alternate URL. URL redirection publicly notifies the site visitor of a temporary or permanent change in the URL they requested.

URL rewriting and redirection are not the same thing. URL rewriting recognizes URL pattern matches, then rewrites the incoming URL to a different internal URL. The action of rewriting a URL can be done silently without notifying the visitor of an official redirect, using HTTP status codes 301 and 302 (for permanent and temporary redirection, respectively). URL redirection employs the same pattern matching process as URL rewriting, but then takes the process one step further by redirecting the site visitor and sending them an official HTTP status code.

For instance, here s an example of an SEO-friendly URL for an HP printer on an e-commerce site:

http://www.jeffshop.com/printers/hp/P1006/

Here s an alternate URL for the same product, constructed in a development-friendly format:

http://www.jeffshop.com/printers.aspx?mfr=hp&model=p1006

URL rewriting is useful when you want to expose SEO-friendly URLs, but map them internally to a different URL format or site structure. URL redirection is useful when you want to combine the URL rewriting pattern matching process with public notification to the site visitor of a change in the URL.

URL rewriting in IIS 5 and 6 is a manual coding and configuration effort, although third-party tools make the task easier. The task is much easier in IIS 7.0, courtesy of the newly released Microsoft URL Rewrite module, which is available as a free download from http://www.iis.net/. The focus of this article is on URL rewriting and redirection using the IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite module.

Note: This article focuses on URL rewriting and redirection using IIS 7.0. For a complete discussion of SEO and URL rewriting in previous versions of IIS, please consult my previous article, Smart SEO: URL Rewriting Using ASP.NET and IIS 6.0 , in the March 2009 issue of asp.netPRO.

Introduction to the IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module

The IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite module provides rules-based URL rewriting and redirection capabilities. The module coordinates with IIS 7.0 to intercept URL requests before they are processed by the Web server. Rewrite rules can be configured using a forms-based utility that is accessible from the IIS management console. Or, you can directly edit rules in the Web application s web.config file. The URL Rewrite module provides several features, as outlined in Figure 1.

Feature

Description

Rules-based URL rewriting engine

The core function of the module is to process URL rewrites using configured rules. The module also supports rule actions that follow rewrites, including redirects. Rewrite rules can be established globally, or for a specific Web application, where the rules are encoded within the web.config file. Rewrite rules establish the mappings between requested URLs and their rewritten replacement URLs.

GUI support

The module provides graphical user interface screens to configure and test URL rewrite rules, and their follow-up actions. It also provides screens to manage rewrite rules and maps.

Rewrite maps

Rewrite maps group sets of rewrite rules.

Failed request tracing support

A feature of IIS 7.0 that helps you troubleshoot failed URL rewrites.

Figure 1: Features of the IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite module.

This article will not cover every available feature in the URL Rewrite module, but rather will cover two important features that will help you get comfortable with using this tool. The features we ll cover are:

§    Create a URL rewriting rule using regular expressions.

§    Rewrite and redirect a URL using pattern matching by example.

The URL Rewrite module is versatile, and we ll demonstrate how you can use the tool with both regular expressions and auto-generated pattern matches, which the tool generates for you based on examples you provide.

Installing the URL Rewrite Module

You can download the URL Rewrite module from http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1691. The module will install on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Microsoft Vista operating system (as well as Windows Server 2008). You must have administrator privileges to install the module. When the installation is complete, restart your machine, then browse the IIS management console; you ll see a new icon entitled URL Rewrite , as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The URL Rewrite module under IIS 7.0 management console.
Figure 2: The URL Rewrite module under IIS 7.0 management console.

Using Visual Studio 2005 with Windows Vista and IIS 7.0

The code and configuration examples in this article are built on Windows Vista and IIS 7.0 using Visual Studio 2008. However, many developers have yet to upgrade from Visual Studio 2005. You can continue to use Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, but you will need to make some minor configuration updates in order to run Web applications under IIS 7.0 using your machine s http://localhost Web server root.

First, make sure you have IIS 7.0 installed on your Windows Vista machine, because it is not installed by default. To do this, go to Control Panel | Programs and Features and select Turn Windows features on and off from the sidebar. You need to expand the IIS 6 Management Compatibility icon and select most of the features, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Set IIS 6.0 management compatibility.
Figure 3: Set IIS 6.0 management compatibility.

If you are an advanced user, you also can select the IIS Management Scripts and Tools and IIS Management Service features, but these are not required for minimum Visual Studio 2005 compatibility.

Second, if you want to create IIS 7.0 managed Web applications, you ll need to run Visual Studio as an administrator when you launch the application from the Programs menu. Figure 4 shows which menu option you need to select.

Figure 4: Run Visual Studio as an administrator.
Figure 4: Run Visual Studio as an administrator.

If you don t run Visual Studio as an administrator, you ll still be able to create Web sites that run under the local ASP.NET Web server at http://localhost:PortNumber.

URL Rewriting Using Rules with Regular Expressions

This first example will show you how to use the URL Rewriting module and regular expressions to map an SEO-friendly URL to the actual URL. The SEO-friendly URL is:

http://localhost/URLRewrite/printers/hp/P1006/

The actual URL is:

http://localhost/URLRewrite/printers.aspx?mfr=hp&model=p1006

First, create a simple ASP.NET Web application in Visual Studio, named URLRewrite, and configure it to run under IIS 7.0. Add a single ASPX page named printers.aspx and copy in to the page the code shown in Figure 5.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"

CodeFile="printers.aspx.cs" Inherits="printers" %>

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

URL Rewrite Module Test

Printer Product Page

You Requested: <%= Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL"]

%>

You Were Served: <%= Request.ServerVariables["SCRIPT_NAME"] + "?"

+ Request.ServerVariables["QUERY_STRING"] %>

Figure 5: URL Rewrite Module test page.

Next, we ll create a rule that pattern matches the incoming SEO-friendly URL and rewrites the URL to instruct the Web server to serve the intended Web page. First, browse the new Web site named URLRewrite under the IIS management console and double-click the URL Rewrite icon. Next, click the Add Rules link to open the available rule templates. Select Blank rule, as shown in Figure 6. Next, fill in the rules property page, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 6: URL Rewrite rule templates.
Figure 6: URL Rewrite rule templates.

Figure 7: URL Rewrite rules property page.
Figure 7: URL Rewrite rules property page.

The name of the rule is PrinterRewrite and the regular expression pattern match for the incoming rules is:

^printers/([a-z]+)/([0-9a-z]+)

You can click the Test pattern button to test an example, as shown in Figure 8. The example being tested here is the meaningful substring of the full Web site URL:

printers/hp/p1006

Finally, apply the changes and you ll see the new rule listed in the rules summary screen. In Visual Studio, switch over to the Web application s web.config file and you ll see that a new section has been added to the web.config file (see Figure 9).

Figure 8: Test a URL Rewrite pattern match expression.
Figure 8: Test a URL Rewrite pattern match expression.

Figure 9: URL Rewrite rule in the web.config file.

To test the URL Rewrite rule, simply browse to the URLRewrite test application using this SEO-friendly URL:

http://localhost/URLRewrite/printers/hp/P1006/

The Web page will display the following:

Printer Product Page

You Requested: /URLRewrite/printers/hp/p1006

You Were Served: /URLRewrite/printers.aspx?mfr=hp&model=p1006

Notice that the original SEO-friendly URL remains in the browser URL field, which is consistent because the rewriting has been done internally. The Web server has been instructed to serve the correct page, but no official redirect is issued back to the client.

URL Redirection Using Rules

Redirection is easy to accomplish using the same rule manager. From an SEO perspective, you want the incoming URL requests to be formatted as simply as possible, while preserving your flexibility to serve pages using alternate URLs. So, typically, you would not want to redirect the user, you would simply want to rewrite the incoming URL so the Web server knows where to look to service the request.

Redirection implies there is a structural change to your Web site that you want the outside world to know about. More importantly, a change that you want search engines to pick up on. Redirection is correctly accomplished when the Web server returns an HTTP status code 301, which indicates to search engine spiders that a permanent redirection has taken place, and that the link equity and page ranking of the former page should be transferred to the newer page. My previous article on SEO (in the March 2009 issue of asp.netPRO) explains in detail why you should never issue HTTP status code 302 temporary redirects.

URL redirection is simple using the URL Rewrite module. You create a similar type of pattern matching rule that we created in the previous section, but you add an additional instruction on the rule property page to issue a redirect to the site visitor.

The URL Rewrite module provides a rule template named User friendly URL, which you can select from the rule templates page shown in Figure 6. This rule template allows you to specify incoming URLs by example, rather than by regular expression, so you avoid having to create complicated regular expressions. Figure 10 illustrates this.

Figure 10: URL Redirection using the User friendly URL rule template.
Figure 10: URL Redirection using the User friendly URL rule template.

In this example we want incoming SEO-unfriendly URLs to be mapped to their SEO-friendly alternatives. In this case, we want:

/URLRewrite/printers.aspx?mfr=hp&model=p1006

to be mapped to:

/URLRewrite/printers/hp/p1006

As Figure 10 shows, simply enter an example of the SEO-unfriendly URL, then select from the drop-down list the corresponding URL to which you want it to be mapped. The Substitution URL textbox automatically updates. Finally, check the Create corresponding redirect rule checkbox and click OK. The rule manager screen will now list these two additional rules:

§    RewriteUserFriendlyURL1

§    RedirectUserFriendlyURL1

Next, switch to the test application s web.config file and you ll see that additional rules have been added to the web.config file (see Figure 11).

redirectType="Permanent" />

Figure 11: URL Rewrite rule in the web.config file.

Notice that the redirect type is permanent, which will issue an HTTP status code 301. Finally, open a browser window and type in the SEO-unfriendly URL:

http://localhost/URLRewrite/printers.aspx?mfr=hp&model=p1006

You ll find the URL has been redirected to:

http://localhost/URLRewrite/printers/hp/P1006/

Conclusion

SEO-driven URL rewrites are essential for preserving hard-earned page rank and link equity for Web pages. The URL Rewrite module is a useful tool that will save you time in creating rewrite and redirection rules for Web sites that run under IIS 7.0. The tool has several useful features that we did not touch on, including the ability to return a custom response, and the ability to create rule maps that group multiple pattern matching rules together. For more information on the tool, review the online documentation and examples at http://www.iis.net/.

Source code accompanying this article is available for download.

 

Jeffrey Hasan, MCSD, is Senior VP of Strategic Consulting Services at Axis Technical Group, Inc. (http://www.axistechnical.com). He has been a professional systems architect and developer for 12 years. His work focuses on enterprise integration, business intelligence, data warehouses, and workflow-driven portals using SharePoint. Jeff has authored several .NET books, including Expert Service Oriented Architecture in C# (Apress, 2006).

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