Best practices for converting an existing website into a website with SEF URL

Question

I've got a website that was created about an year ago and its been constantly revised since then. The website is coded in classic ASP, contains about ~50 pages -- some are multi-purpose, and contains old-school style links such as:

/news.asp?PageIndex=4
/news.asp?SearchString=Obama
/news.asp?SearchString=Obama&PageIndex=4
/news.asp?NewsID=1

I have IIRF v2 installed which allows access to URL rewriting functionality so this I do not have to worry about. What I am worried about is how to replace about 300 links to .ASP pages with SEF urls. As far as my understanding is concerned, I have to add a database query (to extract title of the record being linked) for each link.

I need advice on how to begin converting the website into a SEF URL powered website with as little code change as possible. Wrapper classes and tried-and-tested techniques and pointers to best practices will be appreciated.

Answer 1

I'm not trying to be funny here but seriously how long would it really take to convert 300 links manually? I really suspect that it would take less time than trying to find some automated approach.

Answer 2

Don't forget to permanently redirect each and every old link to a new one (use 301 HTTP code).

Answer 3

At news.asp (and whatever other old pages you have) put something (a class? I don't know, I have never used ASP) that parses the old-style URL and redirects (with a HTTP redirect code) to the new URL.

Answer 4

If you want to do URL Rewriting without changing frameworks or anything, may I suggest that you take a look at IIS7 Url Rewriting Module?

However, if you are rewriting part of your application in .NET ... you might want to consider ASP.NET MVC. It already build simple built-in URL Rewriting module and definitely allows you to keep on using your old "WebForms" (if ASP.NET) or your classic ASP pages.