Proposal: URL-Generation Changes (mostly for SEO reasons but not only)

This was proposed by Paul Piper in Nabble 7 months ago. Here is quoted Paul's proposal

Hey Everyone,

over at ilscipio (www.ilscipio.com) we developed a set of functional OFBiz changes that we believe the entire community could benefit from. The changes have been implemented in parts in Syracus (www.syracus.net) for a while now, but we figured that some of which are too crucial for ofbiz' success in the long run, so we are considering the contribution (as we did with the SOLR component).

As you are probably aware, OFBiz has a pretty uncommon way of generating URLs. Most of this has to do with the fact that OFBiz uses a servlet (ControlServlet) to handle all requests. The servlet is mounted at /control, so that it won't interfere with other servlets. Though functionally valid, this has the sideeffect that all urls are actually created on /control, which is neither pretty, nor good by any measures of SEO. It also means that a few 302 redirects are necessary to forward the user from / to /control/main. It also makes requests more complicated, since many forwards are necessary whenever somebody wants to move away from this implementation.

Since this is hurtful to many of the implementers, I wanted to discuss whether or not you guys would be interested in the changes we have made. The functional changes contain:

• Removal of /control out of all the urls
• SEO-friendly URLS
• Configurable product/category and other URLs
• Frontpage mapping from /main to /

It was tested on our end and contains all necessary improvements (Transforms, Sample Configuration, Servlets & Filters) for it to be applicable.

If interested, I would create a new JIRA ticket for this and after a few minor internal discussions, we will gladly provide the rest of you with it.

Regards,
Paul

There is even a patch, mostly done by Jinghai Shi, that I attach here. Even if it has been already used in Syracus since early this year, some help would be needed to test it thoroughly in OFBiz.

Then we should discuss if it's the way to go. I believe it is. Who needs a /control/ or /main by default in ecommerce urls? Would you not prefer http://localhost:8080/ecommerce/ over http://localhost:8080/ecommerce/control/main ?