Correct practices for where to put images and static files in an ASP.NET MVC application?

Answer 1

To be honest, I don't think its really something to worry about... "/Content" is going to make a pretty minimal contribution to your page size. If you still want to do it, here are some options:

Option 1, if you are running on your own server, is to check out the IIS URL Rewrite module: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/460/using-url-rewrite-module/

Option 2 is to use either RedirectResult, or ContentResult, to achieve the same effect in the MVC framework

First, map a "catchall" route under "Images/" to a controller action, like so

routes.MapRoute("ImageContent", 
                "Images/{*relativePath}", 
                 new { controller = "Content", action = "Image" })

Make sure it is above your standard "{controller}/{action}/{id}" route. Then, in ContentController (or wherever you decide to put it):

public ActionResult Image() {
    string imagePath = RouteData.Values["relativePath"]
    // imagePath now contains the relative path to the image!
    // i.e. http://mysite.com/Images/Foo/Bar/Baz.png => imagePath = "Foo/Bar/Baz.png"
    // Either Redirect, or load the file from Content/Images/{imagePath} and transmit it
}

I did a quick test, and it seemed to work. Let me know in the comments if you have any problems!

Answer 2

It's usually better to put images under a different sub domain. The reason for this is browsers limit the number of connections per URL. So if you use http://static.mysiste.com now the browser can open more concurrent connections due to it being in a different URL.