Breadcrumbs SiteMapPath and SEO-Friendly Routing - asp.net

Question

I have routing set up as follows:
void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.MapPageRoute("", "Home", "~/Default.aspx");
......
}
I'm implementing breadcrumbs using a SiteMapPath control:
<asp:SiteMapPath ID="SiteMapPath1" CssClass="breadCrumbs" runat="server">
</asp:SiteMapPath>
Web.sitemap is set up as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
<siteMapNode url="Home" title="Home" description="Home">
<siteMapNode url="~/About" title="About" description="About">
<siteMapNode url="~/History" title="History"
description="History" />
</siteMapNode>
</siteMapNode>
</siteMap>
My problem is that when I navigate to mysite.com instead of mysite.com/default.aspx, the Home breadcrumb node does not appear. What am I missing?
UPDATE
I managed to get the "Home" node to display by updating Web.sitemap as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
<siteMapNode url="Home" title="Home" description="Home">
<siteMapNode url="~/Default.aspx" title="" description="" />
<siteMapNode url="~/About" title="About" description="About">
<siteMapNode url="~/History" title="History"
description="History" />
</siteMapNode>
</siteMapNode>
</siteMap>
The only remaining problem is that the path separator is still displaying on home page for mysite.com
Is there a way to programatically render the separator invisible for the home page? The SiteMapPath control itself is in a master page.

Answer 1

Maybe you should change your sitemap file as follows :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
<siteMapNode url="~/" title="Global Site Name or Welcome Message" description="Home">
<siteMapNode url="~/Home" title="Home" description="" />
<siteMapNode url="~/About" title="About" description="About">
<siteMapNode url="~/History" title="History"
description="History" />
</siteMapNode>
</siteMapNode>
</siteMap>
and from the sitemapdatasource you should set ShowStartingNode="false" and I think that this solves both of your problems at once...
NOTE: of course this will require that you made this change in the global.asax file (VB):
RouteTable.Routes.MapPageRoute("Home0", "", "~/Default.aspx", True)
RouteTable.Routes.MapPageRoute("Home1", "Home", "~/Default.aspx", True)
hope this helps...