URL Rewriting In ASP.NET

Introduction

While developing a website, you may need to hide the extensions of your web pages due to many reasons such as;

•  You may not need to show the technology you are using to the internet users.
•  You might need to mask the url name with some other appropriate names.
•  For better SEO, I mean search engine friendly URL.
•  For more User friendly URL.

So, here I am going to explain you the simplest way to mask your url according to your need and wish in ASP.NET.

Download Source Code Here

Behind The Scene

In your solution explorer ( in visual studio ) add a folder and name it Technology ( you name it according to your choice ) and now put the webpages you want to be there inside the newly created folder.

** mind it only .aspx pages can be masked using this technique no .html page can be.

Now add a .cs ( class file ) to the root folder of your solution. name it "SiteRouteHandler.cs", and add the following code to this file.

using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Routing;
using System.Web.Compilation;
using System.Web.UI;
public class SiteRouteHandler : IRouteHandler
{    
    public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
    {
        Page page;
        page = BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(PageVirtualPath,
               typeof(Page)) as Page;
        foreach (var item in requestContext.RouteData.Values)
        {
            HttpContext.Current.Items["qparam." + item.Key] = item.Value;
        }
       return page; 
    }
    public string PageVirtualPath { get; set; }
}

After adding this bunch of code and the class file you need to go tho the Global.asax.cs page and add a namespace named "using System.Web.Routing" after this you need to add the following code to the page.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.SessionState;
using System.Web.Routing;

namespace urlRewriting
{
    public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication
    {
        void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // Code that runs on application startup
            RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
        }
        void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.Add("BlogPost", new Route("pages/corporate/",  
            new SiteRouteHandler() { PageVirtualPath = "~/Blogs/WebForm1.aspx" })
               );
            routes.Add("BlogPost1", new Route("pages/blog/",             
            new SiteRouteHandler() { PageVirtualPath = "~/Test/WebForm1.aspx" })
               );
            routes.Add("BlogPost2", new Route("pages/technology/test/check/",          
            new SiteRouteHandler() { PageVirtualPath = "~/Technology/WebForm1.
            aspx" }) );
        }
        void Application_End(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            //  Code that runs on application shutdown

        }

        void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // Code that runs when an unhandled error occurs

        }

        void Session_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // Code that runs when a new session is started

        }

        void Session_End(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // Code that runs when a session ends. 
            // Note: The Session_End event is raised only when the sessionstate           
             mode
            // is set to InProc in the Web.config file. If session mode is set           
            to StateServer 
            // or SQLServer, the event is not raised.

        }

    }
}                                                                                  

 Here I have masked 3 pages those are in 3 different folders Blog, Test and Technology.

The page in Blog folder is redirected to a virtual path "pages/corporate/".
The page in Test folder is redirected to a virtual path "pages/blog/".
The page in Technology folder is redirected to a virtual path "pages/technology/test/check/".

That's it, you have successfully masked your page urls to some virtual ones and search engine friendly urls.

Happy Coding...