WebSphere Commerce suite - URL Rewrite. Possible?

Author

URL Rewrite. Possible?

skuba

2005-09-16, 10:55 am

Hi, I have done URL rewrite in other types of servers, but never for Webspehere. I have this project where the client is using a Commerce suite, but I need to optimize the URLs for search engine friendliness.
Is there something like the .htaccess on apache that would permit this?
Do you have any info on URL rewrite on Websphere?

Thanks so much for helping,
Yan

Robert Brown

2005-09-19, 6:04 pm

URL rewriting is possible with WebSphere Commerce but search engine
friendliness has not been available until just recently (v5.6.1). I
would suggest you mention to the client that an upgrade will solve the
problem. URL Rewriting has its disadvantages in the WC world (no
caching of pages, all pages must be served by WebSphere, etc.) so
neither option will be straightforward IMO.

Give me your version of WC and I'll point you to the correct
documentation for your stack.

R

> Hi, I have done URL rewrite in other types of servers, but never for
> Webspehere. I have this project where the client is using a Commerce
> suite, but I need to optimize the URLs for search engine friendliness.
> Is there something like the .htaccess on apache that would permit
> this?
> Do you have any info on URL rewrite on Websphere?
>
> Thanks so much for helping,
> Yan
>
>
>
> --
> skuba
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2005-09-26, 7:50 am

Hi Yan,

Yes, any URL rewriting should be done in IHS (IBM's version of Apache). Have a look at: -

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

We use this approach to achieve SEO. Of course you have to change your URLs in your JSPs to match to optimisation you are trying to achieve, then build your rewrite rules to map the URL back again (so that WC recogises it).

WC 5.6 contains a module for doing much the same thing. You have to construct your URLs in a particular format (or run a PERL script to modify the starter store JSPs automatically). Instead of using rewrite rules to convert the URL back again, WC uses a f
ilter servlet that sits in front of the normal request server. The downside to this approach is that you can no longer use the WebSphere plugin caching on the web server.

Cheers,
Glen.

skuba

2005-09-27, 12:41 pm

We have been trying some things with URL mapping. Is that what you mean? Or is there any SEO feature beyond that in WC newer versions?

Thanks

quote:
Originally posted by
Hi Yan,

Yes, any URL rewriting should be done in IHS (IBM's version of Apache). Have a look at: -

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

We use this approach to achieve SEO. Of course you have to change your URLs in your JSPs to match to optimisation you are trying to achieve, then build your rewrite rules to map the URL back again (so that WC recogises it).

WC 5.6 contains a module for doing much the same thing. You have to construct your URLs in a particular format (or run a PERL script to modify the starter store JSPs automatically). Instead of using rewrite rules to convert the URL back again, WC uses a f
ilter servlet that sits in front of the normal request server. The downside to this approach is that you can no longer use the WebSphere plugin caching on the web server.

Cheers,
Glen.

2005-09-28, 6:04 pm

Hello,

It sounds like the same. The url mapper is a WC component (defined in the instance.xml file). It reads in the mapping urls from an XML file on startup. At runtime the filter servlet converts the URLs from their static form back to their dynamic form based
on the XML rules.

Downsides are: -

1. You have to change the JSPs to build the static appearing URLs.
2. You can no longer use caching on the WebSphere plugin for these pages.

Cheers,
Glen.