Drupal architectures for flexible content - Drupalcon Barcelona
DotNetNuke Urls - Best practice for administrators, editors and developers
1. DotNetNuke Urls : Best Practice for
Administrators, Editors and
Developers
Orlando DotNetNuke User Group
9th October 2012
Bruce Chapman
2. Brief History of the Url
• ‘The goal of the Web was to be a shared
information space through which people and
machines could communicate’ – Tim Berners
Lee, 1996
• WWW design:
– An information system must be able to record
random associations between any arbitary objects
– Linking between two systems should be
incremental, and not require onscalable
operations such as the merging of link database
3. Brief History of the Url, cont.
• 3 Standards of the World Wide Web
– Addressing Scheme : URI
– Common Protocol : HTTP
– Format Negotiation : HTML
• The URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) gives a
cross-platform, generic, redefinable link to any
resource.
• URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a URI to a
‘thing’ on the internet.
4. Urls are the glue of the internet
• The entire WWW is held together by links
• Your DotNetNuke site is held together by links – get it
right and don’t make a mess!
5. Early Urls
• 1990s: Structured in folders with Documents –
much like how document storage is done on
many machines today
http://www.cern.ch/WebOffice/Doc/OtherTools/Converters/Filters.html
(actual Url from Cern, 1997)
• 2000s: CGI Applications like eBay use the Url
as a program command-line
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=137486649
(actual Url from eBay, 2000)
6. Mid-life Urls
• Rise of Scripting Languages (asp, et al) gave us
the one-page-fits-all approach
http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-
us/dnofftalk/html/office01022003.asp
Actual Url from MSDN, 2003
• Rise of Google in search engines counteracted
the query-string approach, and introduced the
human friendly Url
7. Modern Urls
• SEO Forces* have brought Urls back to the beginning,
where they are:
– Structured
– Meaningful
– Unique
– Simple
* precisely because SEO is all about being machine readable
• DotNetNuke Forums Url, 2004
http://dotnetnuke.com/LinkClick.aspx?link=http%3a%2f%2fwww.asp.net%2fForums%2fShowForu
m.aspx%3ftabindex%3d1%26ForumID%3d90&mid=1248
• DotNetNuke Forums Url, 2012
http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Forums.aspx
8. DotNetNuke Urls for Editors
• Your Menu structure is your Link structure –
be thoughtful in the names of pages
• Don’t use ‘Link Tracking’ – which generates
LinkClick.aspx Urls
• Use the ‘Page’ drop down in the Html Editor
to get the correct Url link each time.
• If using a staging / test environment, modify
the link to be relative instead of absolute
9. On Page SEO with Links For Editors
• Site internal links are important for SEO
• Your home page probably has the highest ‘link juice’,
and can be used to direct importance to key landing
pages
• Links in content are good for establishing pages with
key phrases
10. On Page SEO with Links for Editors
• Footers are a good way to drive links into content
• Footers are also useful for mobile device users where
scrolling can be more troublesome
• Consider varying the footer for different parts of your
site – Products, Blog, Forum – make the footer links
relevant to the page
11. Off Page SEO Links for Editors
• Promoting the site means collecting links from
other sites
• ‘Linkbait’ content like blog posts or feature
pages is a valid way of attracting links
• The usual methods are writing lists, (top 10 ),
using provocative adjectives, stirring up
emotion
• ‘10 useful DotNetNuke tips’ vs ’10 Promotion
Causing DotNetNuke tips’
12. Off Page SEO Links for Editors
• If using this strategy, take the time to optimise
the Url, so that the incoming links have
maximum value.
• For blog posts, this usually means writing the
title with the best keyword combination
• Keep it concise and short enough
• You don’t get control over the link text, but
you do get control over the Url
13. Off Page SEO Links for Editors
• Consider creating a ‘hidden’ landing
page/pages to optimise the Url if the content
is static
http://example.com/my-important-key-phrase
• Where possible, use a tool like Url Master to
allow freedom with the page Url, which, when
linked externally, will help ranking (and click-
through)
http://www.ifinity.com.au/Products/Url_Master_DNN_SEO_Urls
14. Choosing Extensions for DotNetNuke
Administrators
• Urls have a real effect on the success of a site
• Bad Url strategies take time and money to
correct
• Most modules, menus and other extensions
have the Url ‘baked in’
• Evaluation of extensions should include
assessing what Urls are being locked in
15. Choosing Menus for Administrators
• Most menus use the DNN API to retrieve the
Url for a page
• Any Menu that doesn’t should be viewed with
suspicion
• Menus that use simple Html (unordered list)
are crawled better by search engines
• If using multi-language, check how the menu
will adapt
16. Choosing Modules for Administrators
• Simpler Urls are better – period
• Admin Urls don’t matter much at all, not
crawled, not linked.
• Products Listings, Blog posts, Catalogues –
should all use simple Url with not much more
than the item name
• Excessively long Urls with extraneous
information reduce linkability, increase the
keyword/noise ratio in the Url
17. Choosing Modules for Administrators
• Watch out for proprietary Urls that aren’t
using the DNN Url API
• Giveaways include handlers
(/myModuleHander.ashx) and items in
DesktopModules path
(/DesktopModules/MyProductPage.aspx)
• Others do API-external modifications like
looking for particular patterns and doing
find/replace
18. Choosing Modules for Administrators
• Using the DNN Apis allows the content to
upgrade along with the core platform
• Ignoring the Apis locks into a particular
structure and version of DotNetNuke
• As the platform improves, so will the Urls for
the module
• Third-party Url plug-ins work with the DNN
Api, modules which don’t use the Api may not
be compatible
19. Choosing Modules for Administrators
• Some modules vary content slightly with
different Urls – consider using Canonical Link
• Some modules have built-in Canonical Link
control, look for this
• SEO Related – gold standard in modules is to
allow specification of the Url, Title and
Description separately to other content
21. Planning a site migration
• Three categories of site migration
1. Previous technology to DotNetNuke
2. Change in domain name
3. Re-organisation of content
• Migrations usually include using 301
permanent redirect to move Urls
• 301 Permanent Redirect gives a signal to
search engines and browsers to look for
content in new location
22. Planning a Site Migration
• Plan for when it should happen – pick a quiet
time to implement, and pick a quiet time for the
project
• You can always maintain same Url and show new
content. For highly-ranked pages, always a safer
strategy.
• There is no problem with a mix of Url, styles,
extensions, whatever. The concept of a ‘site’ is
really only a set of pages with the same domain
23. Planning Redirects
• Create a list of all ‘from’ and ‘to’ Urls
• Google Webmaster / Bing Webmaster tools
provides good starting point
• Best way is to use spreadsheet with ‘from’ and
‘to’ columns
• Be thorough and get good results
• Plan for a catch-all for some content
• Find the highest ranking/best performing pages
and work backwards
24. Planning Redirect Strategy
• Tools for redirects:
– IIS7 Rewrite Tool (web.config/regex)
– Other IIS plugin
– Dnn siteurls.config file
– Third party plug-ins
– 404 handler based
– General Purpose module like Url Master
25. Previous Technology to DotNetNuke
• For DNN Based solution, Must re-map prior
page extension to ASP.NET runtime
– html / htm / php / asp / cfm
– Easiest way is to use
‘runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests’
(rammfar)
• Native IIS7 redirects do not require remapping
• Alternatively, add individual file handlers for
requests for that extension
26. Change in Domain Name
• Adding new portal alias and changing the
‘primary’ portal alias will work
• Can use IIS7 Rewrite Tool
• Same principle as redirecting non-www to
www
• Make sure site is working OK on new Url
before switching over
27. Re-Organisation of Content
• For minor changes, using the ‘Permanent
Redirect’ option in Dnn will work
• Tools like Url Master allow non-technical staff
to enter and create redirects
• It’s OK to ‘retire’ whole subsections by
redirecting to a single page, but not optimal
28. Post-Migration Checking
• Monitor 404 pages (remember Analytics etc
do not log 404s)
• Daily check of search engine ranking for
important pages
• Expect a temporary drop in rankings across
the site
• If strategy was correct, rankings should return
better than before
29. Urls for the Developer
• For new modules, plan your Urls as part of
your design
• For existing modules, you can always add
better Url schemes with new versions
• Always provide the option to switch off
redirects if you add this
30. Urls for the Developer
• Best practice for module development is
provide a default value derived from content,
but then allow overriding by power user
• Example:
– new product Url :
example.com/Products/Widget
– allow admin to override :
example.com/Products/Widget-for-widgeting-platform
31. Urls for the Developer
• Don’t make assumptions about Dnn Url and
try and make changes
• Worst mistakes are
– case-insensitive comparisons
– looking for specific patterns (/default.aspx) and
replacing – there are APIs for this
– Intentionally creating duplicate content
(example.com/product and
example.com/category/product)
32. Urls for the Developer
• For commercial modules, don’t forget multi-
language Urls. Allow flexibility in Urls for
different languages:
– example.com/products/white-wine
– example.com/produits/vin-blanc
– example.com/producto/vino-blanco
• Again, allowing override relieves many
requirements for administrators
33. Urls for the Developer
• Don’t stuff too many things into the Url, try to
keep it simple but unique
• There’s no need for /view and /edit – the view
is implied
• Allow for Url change. Keep a history and
redirect where changes occur
• Consider use of Canonical Links
• Always, always give administrators options
34. Urls for the Developer
• Building Providers:
– Search Engine Sitemap Provider API
– Friendly Url Provider for Url Master
• Don’t ignore other aspects of SEO that are
unrelated to the Url – customisable titles +
descriptions
• Be aware that social features like Journal may
‘save’ Url, so must always support old versions
of module Urls
35. Best Practice for Urls in DotNetNuke
• Summary
– Urls are very important for the usability of the
internet
– When editing, take care with Urls
– When selecting and installing modules, check out
if the Url strategy is flexible and usable
– When developing DNN modules, think about
flexibility, customisation and SEO
