Setting up redirect in web.config file - asp.net

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

Open web.config in the directory where the old pages reside
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 a c# 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;
}
}
}