{"id":4251521,"date":"2015-06-22T13:06:24","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T13:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/insight\/how-to-turn-sitecore-8-aliases-into-redirects\/"},"modified":"2015-06-22T13:06:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T13:06:24","slug":"how-to-turn-sitecore-8-aliases-into-redirects","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.deptagency.com\/en-uki\/insight\/how-to-turn-sitecore-8-aliases-into-redirects\/","title":{"rendered":"How to turn Sitecore 8 aliases into redirects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\n\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tBack to all articles\t\t<\/span>\n\t\n<\/a>\n\t\tHow to turn Sitecore 8 aliases into redirects\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/picture>\n\t\n\t<\/div>
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\n\t\tJames Simm\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t22 June 2015\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\tRedirects are a \u00a0common feature that our clients request for many reasons, such as their URL structure changing or SEO requirements. Redirects are extremely handy to have, and even better when a non-technical user can create them without having to rely on IIS modifications.\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\t\tSitecore has a few options in this situation, for example, I\u2019m a big fan of the\u00a0Sitecore URL Rewrite Module<\/a>\u00a0by Andy Cohen. If you haven\u2019t checked it out already, it provides a lot of the standard IIS rewrite module functionality, but through Sitecore instead.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tAnother way of implementing redirects if you don\u2019t want something as heavy duty as the URL Rewrite module, is by over-riding aliases in Sitecore. You can provide redirects to the user and at the same time, restrict a feature of Sitecore that can be misused.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tSitecore aliases\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\t\tOften people don\u2019t realise the\u00a0SEO implications of having two URLs<\/a>\u00a0for the same page, which is exactly what aliases do. While you could avoid a situation like this by implementing a\u00a0canonical URL<\/a>, as recommended by Google, in my opinion it\u2019s much better to simply hijack this functionality and use it to provide redirects instead.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tSo, what to do?\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\t\tWell, if we\u2019re going to hijack aliases, you\u2019d expect us to have to write huge chunks of code and override all kinds of classes, right?\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tNope! All we have to do is write a single pipeline modification that comes in at just 60 lines of pretty simple code.\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tWithout further ado, here\u2019s all you need:

CODE IS UNAVAILABLE,\u00a0CAN BE FOUND HERE<\/a>

After that, you just need a way of replacing out the alias resolving pipeline with our new version. Since we know what we\u2019re doing, let\u2019s add this as an include and patch out the original pipeline, like so:

CODE IS UNAVAILABLE,\u00a0CAN BE FOUND HERE\u00a0<\/a>\t<\/p>\n\n\n\t\tOf course, don\u2019t forget to swap out the namespace for your own instead of \u2018launch Sitecore\u2019. Once that\u2019s done, it\u2019s pretty simple to see the results; open your network tab and you\u2019ll see that your aliases have turned to redirects.
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