With the introduction of iXperion, Smartsite has the ability to generate friendly urls for items in the CMS. Instead of producing the famous http://www.mysite.nl/smartsite.dws?id=12345&ch=nl, Smartsite can now generate urls like http://www.mysite.nl/nl/contact/adres.html which are considered more friendly to both the end user and to search engines that take the words in the url into account when spidering your site.

Friendly url construction

Friendly urls are constructed like this:

http://www.mysite.nl/[friendly name of channel]/[friendlyname of parent]/[friendlyname of item].[extension]

where the friendly url

1. starts with the friendly name of the channel;
2. followed by the friendly names of the parents of the item. Parents that do not have a friendly name are left out;
3. followed by the friendly name of the item;
4. followed by the extension of the file type of the item.

A friendly url is only constructed if both the item and the channel have a friendly name. If the friendly name is configured to display directly under the root item, the friendly names of the parents are left out. If the friendly name if configured to not include the file type, the extension if left out.

Mapping friendly urls

When mapping a friendly url to a normal Smartsite url, Smartsite only looks at the first part of the path (where the channel is) and the last part of the path (where the item is). The extension is removed from the item before mapping it. If both channel part and the item part can be mapped to the friendly name of channel resp. item, Smartsite can map the friendly url to a normal url. Any segment between the channel part and the item part is ignored so basically you can have many different urls pointing at the same Smartsite item. These urls below all point to the same item. Note that when using friendly urls, the old fashioned format is still supported at the same time.

• /nl/contact/adres.html
• /nl/contact/adres.fakeextension
• /nl/contact/adres
• /nl/adres.html
• /nl/adres
• /adres.html (This is only valid if nl is the default channel)
• /adres (This is only valid if nl is the default channel)
• /nl/wow/this/is/a/very/long/url/adres.html
• /smartsite.net?id=12345

Friendly name settings

In the manager, you can set the following parameters for the friendly name of the item:

1. Permanent link
   This generates a so called perma link to the item. This basically means that once a friendly name is set for this item, it can no longer be changed in the manager, ensuring that bookmarks that your customers may have yo your website will remain valid.
   
   
2. Display directly under the root
   This setting causes the friendly name of the item to be placed directly after the friendly name of the channel, leaving out the friendly names of the parents of the item. This results in a short url that is easy to remember.
   
   
3. Do not include file type
   Setting this option creates a friendly url for this item without the extension. You may want to set this option to creates the feeling of referring to a folder instead of an item. You typically set this option on items that are folders in the CMS .
   
   
4. Do not update friendly name when the title changes
   This prevents the friendly name from being automatically updated when the title field changes. Usually the friendly name will become look like the title field so you may want too update it automatically. This will invalidate all the bookmarks of the customers of your site. Note the subtle difference with the permanent link settings: this settings only prevents automatic changes to the friendly name, permanent link prevents any update to the friendly name.