Are you unhappy with the URLs that DotNetNuke creates for your website? Do you think that they are far too long, and far too confusing? How can a visitor to your site remember a the URL to a page when it looks like this: http://www.somedotnetnukesite.com/Forum/NewPosts/tabid/123/Default.aspx?
Did you also know that DotNetNuke can generate six or more different URLs for each and every page in your website? Thats really going to confuse your visitors, and search engines too. You can end up with your page rank divided by six, and that is not good at all.
DotNetNuke actually handles URLs very badly. Its a major weakness, and the biggest problem that currently exists in the framework. And because it involves URLs, it affects every single DotNetNuke website out there. Including yours.
Fortunately there is a solution. There is one module that is a magic bullet for all every single URL problem in DotNetNuke. There is a way to get absolutely perfect user friendly and SEO friendly URLs: The DotNetNuke URL Master Module by iFinity.com.au.
I recommend this module for every single DotNetNuke website. I've been using DotNetNuke since 1995, and in that time I have become an expert with a very deep knowledge of the framework. This is by far the best DotNetNuke module ever made. And that's my official expert opinion.
You can buy this module on snocovered.com for $95. For what this module does, that is a real bargin. I strongly recommend that you go get this module right now.
URL Master is the best thing that has ever happened to DotNetNuke URLs. This module solves all of the problems caused by DotNetNuke's default URL scheme...
DotNetNuke's URL problems include:
- Messy URLs with long strings of parameters.
- URLs that are not very SEO friendly.
- URLs that are not at all human friendly.
- No ability to make each URL say exactly what you want it to say.
- Each page will always have multiple URLs.
- No built in 301 redirect handling.
- No support for conversion from non latin characters to latin characters.
- No method for allowing the home page URL to always be the domain name (mysiste.com/default.aspx instead of just mysite.com/).
URL Master solves these problems and more, plus it is easy to setup and use. With URL Master you can have:
- Perfect SEO friendly URLs eg www.example.com/widgets/red-widgets/.
- Human friendly URLs that are readable and understandable by humans!
- Each page will have one and only one URL: no more duplicate content.
- All URLs that point to the home page can be redirected to the domain name.
- Easy 301 redirects even from pages that no longer exist.
- URLs with non latin characters are easily converted to use latin characters instead of garbled URL encodings.
- Allows you to create URLs that have virtual components eg www.example.com/widgets/red-widgets/, where there does not have to be a folder called "widgets" for this URL to work.
- Manage all settings on one page, no more switching between every single page of your site to change settings.
- Manage all URLs on one page, no more switching between every single page of your site to change settings.
Support
The support for URL Master is fantastic, and the author will gladly help with any problems you have.
Extra goodies
- Converting a non DNN site to a DNN site? URL Master lets you 301 all of the old site URLs to the new URLs - even though the old pages do not exist anymore, and even if the old URLs have a completely different extension.
- Use what ever page extension you want: .aspx or .htm or even .php or a completely made up extension!
- Best of all, you can have URLs *without* extensions: make your URLs look truly professional.
- And lots more that you can find for yourself when you buy this module from snowcovered.com
URL Master also works extremely well with another module on our review list -
Snapsis Pageblaster. These two modules together will completely transform your slow website with bad URLs to a well oiled machine!
Drawbacks
This is a module that operates at the very first step of handling a user's request. It can only be implemented as module that works on the entire website, so for a DotNetNuke install with multiple portals, you can not use this on just one single portal, it must be used on all portals. But it does mean that you will have good URLs for all portals of your DotNetNuke install.