Writing SEO friendly URL’s in Sharepoint 2007 / 2010 (Part 2)

In my previous post I have discussed how to use URL rewrite module to create SEO friendly urls for Sharepoint websites. In this post, I will focus on how to improve this functionality by using DB Provider in IIS Rewrite Module 2.0 and IIS Rewrite module extensibility samples then bring it all together into SharePoint as a custom feature that will be linked from the Site Actions to allow content authors to manage url rewriting from within SharePoint

Pre requisites:

1. MOSS 2007 or 201

2. IIS 7.0 / 7.5

3. SQL Server 2005 or 2008

4. IIS Rewrite module 2.0,

5. IIS Rewrite modle extensibility samples


STEP 1



1. Download and install IIS URL rewrite module 2.0 http://www.iis.net/download/urlrewrite



2. Download and install Extensibility samples http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=rewriteextensibility&DownloadId=9257


During the installation make sure to select the "Runtime" option in the custom setup. This will register the sample providers in .NET Global Assembly Cache (GAC) so that they can be used by URL Rewrite Module

Once we have downloaded and installed these two components you can then move on to the configuration part






STEP

1. Open URL Rewrite feature in IIS Manager then select “View Providers”

2. Select “Add Provider”

There are three rewrite providers included in the installation package :



DbProvider - this provider can be used to retrieve rewrite mappings from a SQL Server database table by executing a stored procedure

FileMapProvider - this provider can be used to retrieve rewrite mappings stored in a text file

FileContainsProvider - this provider can be used to check if any string in a text file is a substring of the provider's input string.




In this example I will only be using DbProvider.




STEP 3
To use the DbProvider, you will need access to your SQL server. The provider will connect to SQL Server database and execute a stured procedure that takes a NVARCHAR input parameter containing the input URL string and returns a one row one column result set containing the output URL string on the NVARCHAR string






I am creating two seaprate DB providers 1. DB_Rewrite and 2. DB_Redirect here which will refrence to the separate stored procedures GetRewrittenUrl and GetRedirectedUrl



Open a SQL Server Management Studio, open a new query window and execute the following SQL script:


USE [master]

CREATE LOGIN [IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool] FROM WINDOWS WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master]

CREATE DATABASE [RewriteDB]
GO



USE [RewriteDB]

GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[RewriteTable](

[OriginalUrl] [nvarchar](256) NOT NULL,

[NewUrl] [nvarchar](256) NOT NULL

) ON [PRIMARY]

GO

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetRewrittenUrl]
@input nvarchar(256)
AS
SELECT rt.NewUrl
FROM dbo.RewriteTable rt
WHERE rt.OriginalUrl = @input

GO

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetRedirectedUrl]

@input nvarchar(256)

AS

SELECT rt.OriginalUrl

FROM dbo.RewriteTable rt

WHERE rt.NewUrl = @input

GO


STEP 4

Configuring DbProvider settings

In IIS Manager in the URL Rewrite feature view select "View Providers..." in the action pane.

Select "Add Provider" and choose DbProvider. Name it DB_Rewrite; that will be the name by which you will refer to the provider from a rewrite rule



Select the DbProvider instance called DB_Rewrite and click "Add Provider setting..." action.


Use the "Edit Provider Setting" dialog to configure the provider:



Use the following values for the provider settings:


SQL Server connection string: provide a SQL Server connection string, for example:


"Data Source=servername\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=RewriteDB;Integrated Security=True"


Stored procedure name: GetRewrittenUrl


Cache minutes interval: set to 0 if values in the SQL table do not change, or set to a positive integer so that provider periodically refreshes the module's internal rewrite cache. If not specified the the value of 0 is assumed.




Repeat this process to create a second DbProvider instance


Select "Add Provider" and choose DbProvider. Name it DB_Redirect; that will be the name by which you will refer to the provider from a redirect rule

Select the DbProvider instance called DB_Redirect and click "Add Provider setting..." action.


Use the "Edit Provider Setting" dialog to configure the provider:



Use the following values for the provider settings



SQL Server connection string: provide a SQL Server connection string, for example:


"Data Source=servername\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=RewriteDB;Integrated Security=True"


Stored procedure name: GetRedirectedUrl



Cache minutes interval: set to 0 if values in the SQL table do not change, or set to a positive integer so that provider periodically refreshes the module's internal rewrite cache. If not specified the the value of 0 is assumed.






STEP 5

Calling DbProvider from a Rewrite Rule:

In the root directory of your sharepoint site open web.config file.

add the following lines inside <configuration>/<system.webServer>/<rewrite>/<rules> element:

<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>

<providers>

<provider name="DB_Rewrite" type="DbProvider, Microsoft.Web.Iis.Rewrite.Providers, Version=7.1.761.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0545b0627da60a5f">

<settings>

<add key="ConnectionString" value="Data Source=DatabaseName;Initial Catalog=RewriteDB;User=user_name; Password=password />

<add key="StoredProcedure" value="GetRewrittenUrl" />

<add key="CacheMinutesInterval" value="0" />

</settings>

</provider>

<provider name="DB_Redirect" type="DbProvider, Microsoft.Web.Iis.Rewrite.Providers, Version=7.1.761.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0545b0627da60a5f">

<settings>

<add key="ConnectionString" value="Data Source=DatabaseName;Initial Catalog=RewriteDB;User=user_name; Password=password” />

<add key="StoredProcedure" value="GetRedirectedUrl" />

<add key="CacheMinutesInterval" value="0" />

</settings>

</provider>

</providers>

<rules>

<rule name="DbProvider2" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">

<match url="(.*)" />

<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">

<add input="{DB2:{R:1}}" pattern="(.+)" />

</conditions>

<action type="Redirect" url="{C:1}" />

</rule>

<rule name="DbProviderTest" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">

<match url="(.*)" />

<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">

<add input="{DB:{R:1}}" pattern="(.+)" />

</conditions>

<action type="Rewrite" url="{C:1}" />

</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>

This rule performs HTTP redirect to a URL that is obtained from a SQL Server database via DbProvider. The DbProvider instance named "DB" is invoked from the rule's condition and if the result returned from the provider is not empty then the HTTP redirection is performed.



At this stage you should be able to add Original and New Urls (friendly urls) to you database table and test is they are working correctly. If you are having trouble, remove the second Db_Provider (DB_Redirect) and test it saperately until you get it working correctly then add the redirect part. The reason I am using two separate providers is because I display a friendly url even when uses navigate to the site pages through the website navigation menu (not just when they type in the short url)



For example

If we have an Original sharepoint url : http://www.mysite.com.au/AboutUs/Pages/default.aspx

And a NewUrl(friendly url) http://www.mysite.com.au/about-us  

The rewriting will work fine if user manually types http://www.mysite.com.au/about-us
 But if they use the navigation menu to get to this page they will get http://www.mysite.com.au/AboutUs/Pages/default.aspx


To fix this, I am doing a permanent (301) redirection from old URL back to new URL
STEP 6
Once we have the functionality working correctly, the next step is to create an administration page where content authors can add / update / modify old and new urls to RewriteDB

STEP 7

Create a sharepoint Feature and add a link to it form the site actions menu




Step6 and Step 7 should be very easy to implement if you have any .net forms devepment experience and basic understanding on setting up sjharepoint features. so I am not posting specific details on these steps but if you would like to get more information or sample source code please send me an email on srirajc@hotmail.com






To see  this in action  please visit >> http://www.hamiltonisland.com.au/

 

SharePoint sites and IIS 7 URL rewrite module

Recently while i was working on a public facing SharePoint 2007 website i noticed that whenever a page is requested, SharePoint 2007 uses a 302 (temporary redirect) to redirect users to the page loaceted in site collection.

For example when a page with url http://www.mysite.com is requested SharePoint redirects this request to http://www.mysite.com.au/Pages/default.aspx with a status code(302). This works fine for a user requesting this page but this type of redirects is not recommended by most search engines and it could effect the overall search engine ranking for the website.

After spending few days trying to find a solution to this problem, one day i came across a very useful article article on Waldek Mastykarz's blog . Although it give me a good starting point but i could not get the suggested solution to work smoothly on my site.

Soon after IIS 7 launched their rewrite module, Waldek Mastykarz posted another very useful article on how to implement IIS 7 rewrite module on SharePoint 2007 website, this completely resolves the 302 temporary redirect issue and also explains how to use IIS 7 rewrite module to create a short (seo friendly) page url for SharePoint Website.

I am not posting the information that is already provided on Waldek Mastykarz's blog so, if you need more information on using IIS 7 rewrite module on your sharepoint site, please refer to Waldek Mastykarz's blog

On this post i will be addressing some common issues that occur after implementing IIS 7 rewrite module on SharePoint 2007 site.

1. 404 page cannot be foound errors while accessing pages thru Sharepoint WCM (web content management) and Sharepoint Designer after implementing IIS 7 rewrite module.

2. Form postback errors after implementing IIS 7 rewrite module.


After Implementing IIS 7 rewrite module you will notice that although the site works fine for annonymus users, when you try to access the site through WCM or Sharepoint designer for authoring you recieve a 404 page not found message. This happens because IIS can not distinguish between an edit page request and a normal view page request so it returns a rewritten url in both cases and obviously the WCM or Sharepoint designer cannot find the page.

So, after all that effort :) how do we get this to work for both website visitors and content authors?

its quite simple, you just need to extend your SharePoint Web application. Give your extended application a name that can be easily distinguished from the original application for example if you original application was called [SITE] name the extended application something like [staging.SITE].

now you should see two seperate site under IIS

a. SITE (this will be used for the public website and will use iis 7 rewrite module)
b. staging.SITE (this will be used by the content authors and will NOT use iis 7 rewrite module)



More information on how to extend an existing web application can be found under
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262668.aspx



After you have extended your Sharepoint Web application. Log on to Sharepoint Central Admin, click on Operations >> Alternate access mapping >> Edit public zone url's >> from the Alternat access mapping collection drop down list, select your web application (SITE) >> under default add your public site url >> under Internet >> add your authoring url >> save.



By using this method there is no conflicts between the rewrite module and page edit requests.



Resolving Form Postback : Asp.Net web Forms use form postback to maintain the state of server side controls. When a server side control is added on web page, Asp.Net will render form tag that contains an action attriribute pointing back to the page where the form control is. This means that if rewriting was used for that page, the action attribute will point back to the rewritten url, not the url that was requested from the browser. This will cause the browser to show rewritten url any time postback occurs


There are a few workarounds to fix this problem. For example, you could sub-class the form control, or use Control Adapter. However, these workarounds were not very easy to implement. Luckily, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 provides a very simple way to fix this issue. You can use the property of HtmlForm class called Action to set the postback URL to the one that was requested by browser before any rewriting happened. You can obtain that URL from a server variable set by URL rewriting component. For example ISAPI_Rewrite saves it in a server variable called HTTP_X_REWRITE_URL. URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 saves it in HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL. So, to fix the postback URL for your web form when you use URL Rewrite Module, you would need to add the following code to the page:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL"]) )
{
form1.Action = Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_X_ORIGINAL_URL"];
}
}

finally, if you are using this function directly on your master page, do not forget to edit your web.config file

between <PageParserPaths> tags

add
< PageParserPath VirtualPath="~/_catalogs/masterpage/YourMasterPage.master" CompilationMode="Always" AllowServerSideScript="true" >

to allow script execution.