Redirect /folder to /mypage.aspx on ASP.NET and IIS 6

Question

I am trying to set up a shorter url for the users to use in their marketing material (eg mydomain.com/jobs points to mydomain.com/employment.aspx). The biggest reason for this is that we are close to launching our new site in which /employment.aspx will no longer work. In the new site I have /jobs working, but I can't figure out how to change it on our old site. I am using IIS 6 and ASP.NET 3.5.

All of the options I have tried, there is already code in place that does work. I am not sure what is happening or what is going wrong.

1. system.web/urlMappings <add url="~/jobs" mappedUrl="~/employment.aspx" /> - Worked on my PC, didn't work on server.
2. system.web/urlMappings <add url="~/jobs/default.aspx" mappedUrl="~/employment.aspx" /> - /jobs/default.aspx worked, but /jobs did not.
3. configuration/urlrewritingnet <add name="RewriteJobs" virualUrl="~/jobs" rewriteUrlParameter="ExcludeFromClientQueryString" destinationUrl="~/employment.aspx" ignoreCase="true" /> <add name="RewriteJobs2" virualUrl="~/jobs/default.aspx" rewriteUrlParameter="ExcludeFromClientQueryString" destinationUrl="~/employment.aspx" ignoreCase="true" /> - Neither work
4. I seen reference to using global.asax in the Application_BeginRequest method, but that didn't work either.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of what I might be doing wrong?

Answer 1

You might consider using Helicon Isapi rewrite for it, because as I remember there are some problems on setuping rewriting module on IIS 6. On the other hand I'm not excited with helicon. Just an option to try anyway.

Answer 2

Easiest way to do that without messing with any settings or plugins is to actually create that directory and put a file inside. You can have an empty default.aspx with the following contents:

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>

<script type="text/C#" runat="server">
void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
    Response.Redirect("~/employment.aspx");
}
</script>

Make sure IIS treats default.aspx as a default page for this directory.

Or if you want a 301 instead of a 302, go through the process of setting those headers manually, since Response.RedirectPermanent isn't available until .NET 4.

This isn't the most "correct" way, and it would become a mess if you tried to do too many of these, but it's a quick fix that would work great temporarily.

Answer 3

Maybe this would work for you, a IIS fix:

http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite