Setting up redirect in web.config file

Question

I'm trying to redirect some unfriendly urls with more descriptive ones. These urls end in .aspx?cid=3916 with the last digits being different for each category name page. I want it to instead redirect to Category/CategoryName/3916. I tried this in the web.config file:

<location path="Category.aspx?cid=3916"> <system.webServer>   <httpRedirect enabled="true" destination="http://www.site.com/Category/CategoryName/3916" httpResponseStatus="Permanent" /> </system.webServer> 

but since it didn't end with just the extension, it didn't work. Is there an easy way to get this to work? I'm using IIS 7.5.

Answer 1

1. Open web.config in the directory where the old pages reside

2. Then add code for the old location path and new destination as follows:

   <configuration>   <location path="services.htm">     <system.webServer>       <httpRedirect enabled="true" destination="http://domain.com/services" httpResponseStatus="Permanent" />     </system.webServer>   </location>   <location path="products.htm">     <system.webServer>       <httpRedirect enabled="true" destination="http://domain.com/products" httpResponseStatus="Permanent" />     </system.webServer>   </location> </configuration> 

You may add as many location paths as necessary.

Answer 2

You probably want to look at something like URL Rewrite to rewrite URLs to more user friendly ones rather than using a simple httpRedirect. You could then make a rule like this:

<system.webServer>   <rewrite>     <rules>       <rule name="Rewrite to Category">         <match url="^Category/([_0-9a-z-]+)/([_0-9a-z-]+)" />         <action type="Rewrite" url="category.aspx?cid={R:2}" />       </rule>     </rules>   </rewrite> </system.webServer>