Search Engine Optimization: URL Rewriting

Intershop Commerce Management features a URL rewriting mechanism that enables web applications to publish search engine friendly URLs. Hence, URL rewriting provides one of several means that help you optimize Intershop Commerce Management sites for search engines.

The default implementation of Intershop Commerce Management's URL Rewrite Handler uses cartridge-specific configuration files to retrieve the rules that define how Intershop Commerce Management URLs are transformed to search engine-friendly URLs. These files, urlrewrite.properties, are stored for every concerned cartridge in <IS.INSTANCE.SHARE>/system/cartridges/<cartridge_name>/release/urlrewrite. To edit the rule settings, a sound knowledge of regular expressions is required.

The properties intershop.urlrewrite.CheckSource and intershop.urlrewrite.CheckSourceInterval as included in the global appserver.properties file, control the monitoring status and refreshing behavior for the URL rewriting. For details, refer to Guide - Intershop Application Server Settings in the Intershop Knowledge Base.

To enable the URL rewriting mechanism for applications:

Warning: Before enabling URL rewriting, make sure the replacement rules are properly configured in the urlrewrite.properties file(s).
  1. In the navigation bar, select Site Management.
    A list of available sites is displayed.
  2. Click the name of the site you intend to edit.
    The Site Settings page is displayed.
  3. Select the URL Rewriting checkbox.
  4. Click Apply to save your settings. Otherwise, click Reset to discard your changes.
Tip: Most search engines will rank down sites with insecure URLs. Web applications should use secure URLs in order to achieve a good search index position. For more detailed information on how to achieve this, see Secure URL-only Server Configuration.