Improve Web User Experience with IIS SEO Toolkit RTW and IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 RC

Remember the scene in Diehard when he shoots the glass? That was cool. What’s even cooler is now you can fine tune your Web site for the search engine, thus improving the experience for your Web users.

Today, Microsoft announced the releases of IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit RTW and IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 RC – both extensions for IIS.

Don’t take it personally – I know it can be hard when your significant other tells you how to make improvements on something you worked hard on, let alone a faceless piece of software. But really, they are both just trying to help. Think of the customers.

The IIS SEO Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit helps to improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines, control how search engines access and display Web content, and inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing.

We’ve all been to a cocktail party when you’re trying to impress that certain person, and they ask for the URL of the latest project you are working on. It’s embarrassing when you have to rattle off a long-winded URL with question marks, equal signs, random ID numbers, and ampersands. But with URL Rewriter, you don’t have to anymore.

IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 adds support for outbound response rewriting and enables Web administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find. IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 can now replace the URLs generated by a Web application in the response HTML with a more user friendly and search engine friendly equivalent, modify the links in the HTML markup generated by a Web application behind a reverse proxy, and fix up the content of any HTTP response by using regular expression pattern matching. IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 helps to easily define rules that match URLs or HTTP headers to generate more friendly and consistent URLs, protect content and assets from unauthorized linking and scanning, and integrate with existing IIS features to improve management, performance, and troubleshooting.

Did I mention it’s free? And it’s available to download and install today with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0, your one-stop shop to get everything for the Microsoft Web Platform – including IIS SEO Toolkit RTW and IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 RC. From IIS Extensions to the Windows Web App Gallery and beyond, there is sure to be something useful for your Web site endeavors.

Oh, if you run PHP, be sure to check out our learning section on Running PHP Applications on IIS. We have a ton of brand new and updated content to help provide PHP on Windows users a single source of end-to-end guidance. Pretty sweet!

For more information or to download, please visit the IIS SEO Toolkit RTW page and the IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 RC page.

Eric Rezabek

Senior Product Manager

IIS/Web