URL Rewriting - Using Friendly Page Addresses
URL Rewriting is a method for turning unfriendly addresses, like 'default.aspx?tok=3&atk=123' into search-engine friendly addresses like 'my web-page'.
This technique uses a piece of software installed on the web server which translates the friendly web addresses into the actual URLs which the website needs to find and display the page. This is now available on all SSIDM websites and you can start using it at any time.
The advantage of using friendly URLs is that they are much preferred by search engines and so will help promote search terms used in the name.
How to use URL Rewriting in SSIDM Studio
You can use the technique on Site Sections and Pages but not currently on individual products. It is recommended you you use just lower case and separate words within the name using hyphens, e.g. my-friendly-webpage.
Site Sections
By setting a friendly name for each section the main menu of the website will show friendly URLs. For each section, enter a friendly name in the 'Friendly Name' box and save.
Pages
Setting a Friendly Name for a page will cause all automatically-generated links to use the friendly name instead of the ?atk=123 hyperlink. This includes the main menu, search results and related pages.
You will find the Friendly Name option under the [status] tab for each page.
You have the option of making a link to page appear on the footer of every page of the site, which is useful if you are creating SEO-friendly landing pages. You have the option of adding .htm to the end of the friendly name to make it appear as if the pages are static HTML pages, but this isn't necessary.
Hyperlinks
Note that only automatically-generated links will use the new URLs - any existing hyperlinks in existing pages will not be changed. However you can update these and add new links by just entering the friendly name into the URL of a hyperlink in the editor.
Important Tips
If you find that some new friendly URLS aren't working there is an option on the Tools menu to recreate the file that contains all the URLs and the pages that each points to. The option is called 'Create URL Rewrites. It is recommended that you run this anyway after adding a number of friendly names.
Don't forget to recreate your XML Site Map after adding new pages or adding friendly URLs so that search engines pick these up when crawling your site. This option is also on the Tools menu, called Create XML Site Map.
Lastly, once you have given a page a friendly URL, don't change it! Otherwise search engines may see the new name as a duplicate page.