Comments on: SEO Canonical URLs And 301 Redirects In Windows IIS 6, IIS 7

By: Mark | SEO Malta

Mark | SEO Malta — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:43:05 +0000

If I understand correctly he said you can use web.config instead of the global.asax on IIS7. I tried implementing the changes in web.config to sort canonicalization for SEO and worked fine for me.

Thanks,
Mark

By: Social Maximizer

Social Maximizer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:31:35 +0000

I did as you wrote but have got the error: Error in Global.asax: followed by no error message. Wonder where I’ve gone wrong?

By: Jordan

Jordan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:46:53 +0000

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the article. I’ve implemented your IIS 6 solution on my site. It works well, except that if I type in http://mysite.com/ it returns http://www.mysite.com/index.html rather than simply http://www.mysite.com/ (i.e. I don’t want to have the “index.html” portion visible in the address).

Is there some additional code that can be added to the global.asax file to handle this?

Thanks!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:09:28 +0000

Thanks for this. I just inherited a site on IIS 6. I’ve only worked with Apache and .htaccess for 301s in the past.

My question is, I have also found a tutorial that suggests 301 is best done through IIS 6 control panel rather than through the global.asax file.

We have an outsourced network admin who knows nothing of SEO and so I need help figuring out the right way to 301 in IIS 6.

Sorry for asking a potentially dumb question.

By: LYF4CE

LYF4CE — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:52:20 +0000

One of the easiest ways to redirect using IIS is to just create a new web site. Most people are interested in making the http://www.yoursite.com domain the one that answers canonical URLs. Using IIS headers, simply remove the yoursite.com domain from the primary web site.

Create a new web site and make sure during the setup that you choose the path that your site’s files are located. Once the site is setup, open its properties, click the Advanced button and enter yourdomain.com as the header. Click the Home Directory tab and check the radio “A redirection to a URL” and the checkbox “A permanent redirection for this resource”.

All the files in your website will now automatically and permanently redirect to http://www.yourdomain.com.

I can see times when this could cause issues with web sites. For instance, if the developers have hard-coded yourdomain.com into the web code and the code misbehaves during the redirect. Albeit, if you’re coding like that you should have your hand slapped like a Catholic nun with a ruler, it can happen. From my experience, if this doesn’t work for your web site you have other issues that should be dealt with anyway because things aren’t being done right somewhere in the code.

Again, easy fix. Each situation will be unique and should be assessed thoroughly before implementing a solution. Sometimes the simple solutions are the best; sometimes developers need a swift kick in the pants.

Cheers!

By: Tyler Cordaro

Tyler Cordaro — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:36:18 +0000

Issues like this is why I use Appache. Thx 4 the info

By: otimização de sites

otimização de sites — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:55:30 +0000

Great tips!
I always used Redirects in .htaccess files or setting up the server.
Thanks for the info.

I´ve already bookmarked and subscribed the feeds.

By: SEO Norwich

SEO Norwich — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:11:00 +0000

Great stuff barry, I predominatly work with Apache but this has been a great insight to how this is done in IIS

By: ITCN

ITCN — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:14:57 +0000

Matt;
You could use a regular 301 rule. The reason I use the global.asax file is because I also perform URL re-writing to create search engine friendly URLs. See other post about that here: http://www.barrywise.com/2008/11/seo-search-engine-friendly-urls-with-aspnet-and-iis/

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:58:12 +0000

Thanks for the Article Barry,

Is there a reason to use the global.asax file over the 301 redirection available in IIS 6.0 when configuring the home directory?

Would you use the global.asax file because some search engines treat this 301 as a 302? Or is it an issue of load on IIS.

Thanks!