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.example.com/Category/CategoryName/3916" httpResponseStatus="Permanent" />
    </system.webServer>
</location>

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

Answer 3

In case that you need to add the http redirect in many sites, you could use it as ac# console program:

   class Program
{
    static int Main(string[] args)
    {
        if (args.Length < 3)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Please enter an argument: for example insert-redirect ./web.config http://stackoverflow.com");
            return 1;
        }

        if (args.Length == 3)
        {
            if (args[0].ToLower() == "-insert-redirect")
            {
                var path = args[1];
                var value = args[2];

                if (InsertRedirect(path, value))
                    Console.WriteLine("Redirect added.");
                return 0;
            }
        }

        Console.WriteLine("Wrong parameters.");
        return 1;

    }

    static bool InsertRedirect(string path, string value)
    {
        try
        {
            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

            doc.Load(path);

            // This should find the appSettings node (should be only one):
            XmlNode nodeAppSettings = doc.SelectSingleNode("//system.webServer");

            var existNode = nodeAppSettings.SelectSingleNode("httpRedirect");
            if (existNode != null)
                return false;

            // Create new <add> node
            XmlNode nodeNewKey = doc.CreateElement("httpRedirect");

            XmlAttribute attributeEnable = doc.CreateAttribute("enabled");
            XmlAttribute attributeDestination = doc.CreateAttribute("destination");
            //XmlAttribute attributeResponseStatus = doc.CreateAttribute("httpResponseStatus");

            // Assign values to both - the key and the value attributes:

            attributeEnable.Value = "true";
            attributeDestination.Value = value;
            //attributeResponseStatus.Value = "Permanent";

            // Add both attributes to the newly created node:
            nodeNewKey.Attributes.Append(attributeEnable);
            nodeNewKey.Attributes.Append(attributeDestination);
            //nodeNewKey.Attributes.Append(attributeResponseStatus);

            // Add the node under the 
            nodeAppSettings.AppendChild(nodeNewKey);
            doc.Save(path);

            return true;
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Exception adding redirect: {e.Message}");
            return false;
        }
    }
}