Does ASPX and IIS support Mod_Rewrite?

[FunkyBears]

I'm getting cunfused with feedback regarding a new site I've had built in ASP.net.
1) Does ASPX and IIS support Mod_Rewrite?
2) Is optimising ASPX for search almost impossible to do?
Paul

 

[Optegris]

1) No IIS does not support Mod_Rewrite as that is for Apache webservers. You can use, and we do, www.isapirewrite.com though to do the same thing

2) I see no reason why it should be impossible. I'm not a .NET programmer but it's just the same as any other server side language...

 

[FunkyBears]

Thanks Phil most appreciated. Any other comments as to ASP.net and SEO
would be welcomed
Paul

 

[DotNetWebs]

Hi

You might also want to take a look at UrlRewriting.Net

I use this open source component to dynamically rewrite 99.9% of all the pages on my Visit Horsham site.

Regarding SEO - ASP.NET 1.* had a few issues (mainly due to the rendering of non-standard HTML) but these have been addressed in ASP.NET 2.0.

Regards

Dotty

 

[Astaroth]

It can be done either by using a .net component like those mentioned or by changing the configuration in IIS

Doing it in IIS is much better as you can cater for all circumstances, with components like the one Dotty mentioned they will only work when IIS recognises the original request as being for a .net page so you must have urls with a file extention. There are work arounds possible but it depends on the complexity of your system on if this is practical or not.

There is no reason why Net 2.0 is any better or worse for SEO than any other way of creating websites though naturally you need someone who takes SEO into consideration when creating the site.

The only real issue with .Net is the amount of data it adds in hidden form fields (namely the viewstate) and the impact this can have on page loading speed but there are both ways round this and development considerations that can reduce the impact this has.

 

[FunkyBears]

excellent Dotty and Astaroth many thanks

 

[DotNetWebs]

...Doing it in IIS is much better as you can cater for all circumstances, with components like the one Dotty mentioned they will only work when IIS recognises the original request as being for a .net page so you must have urls with a file extention. There are work arounds possible but it depends on the complexity of your system on if this is practical or not...

Very true but if you do not need to rewrite non asp.net pages I think that using a .net component that is independent of IIS can actually be an advantage sometimes.

For example the component will work on development machines that do not have IIS installed. It will also make your code more portable and easier to use in shared hosting environments etc.

Regards

Dotty

 

[Astaroth]

100% agree which is why we also use the same component as you suggested however we for the more complex sites we have we do get 404 errors from people that trim off what appears to be the file name - unfortunately with all the categories and sub-cats etc it is impractical to create a dummy redirection file for each.

 

[mattk]

I'd tend to go with Astaroth. Do your rules in IIS, that way all pages will have the rules applied (assuming that's what you want), rather than just ASPX.

I see no reason why a well written ASP.NET site cannot be SEO'd. Most people bulk when they see the size of the viewstate on the page, but this can be either turned off when you don't need it, or held in server memory, rather than passed to the client every time.

 

[FunkyBears]

Ok, let's put it this way. Is a site built using PHP far easier to optimise for search that a site in asp.net?
thanks again for all your input
Paul

 

[Astaroth]

As long as you have the right permissions it is as easy to do either fully.

It is more common to have the right permissions with a PHP webhost than it is a .Net when you are talking about shared hosting but there is a very close second best that can be done with .Net

You then have to cross compare the other Pros/ Cons of the two frameworks such as .Net is precompiled and so quicker out the box (I believe there are add ons for PHP that can help address this issue), PHP is more lax which is both a good and a bad thing - great that you can get "something" working easier but if it isnt working correctly this may come back to bite you where as .Net will throw the error and takes more time for you to fix but then you know it is working correctly.

 

[mattk]

Ok, let's put it this way. Is a site built using PHP far easier to optimise for search that a site in asp.net?
thanks again for all your input
Paul

In a word, No.