URL Rewrite Module

IIS URL Rewrite Module enables Web administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find. By using rule templates, rewrite maps, .NET providers, and other functionality integrated into IIS Manager, Web administrators can easily set up rules to define URL rewriting behavior based on HTTP headers, HTTP response or request headers, IIS server variables, and even complex programmatic rules. In addition, Web administrators can perform redirects, send custom responses, or stop HTTP requests based on the logic expressed in the rewrite rules.

Umbraco Umbraco logo blue

How to add a trailing slash in Umbraco 8

This article shows you how to add a trailing slash to URL’s in Umbraco 8, using IIS URL Rewrite Module, without breaking the Umbraco backend. Forcing one particular URL avoids duplicate content, which is important for SEO.

WordPress WP-Super-Cache logo

Tips to speed up WordPress, serve gzip compressed static HTML files

Who said WordPress is slow on Windows Server IIS? Gzip compress and serve WP-Super-Cache or Cache Enabler static HTML files, to supercharge your WordPress blog. Here is how to serve gzip compressed HTML files through Windows Server IIS: create smaller, compressed, static HTML files, that are downloaded faster. This works with WP-Super-Cache and Cache Enabler on IIS!

Windows Server

RewriteProxy with .htaccess in IIS

Rewrite and proxy HTTP requests in IIS using a .htaccess. In my case scenario, I had to proxy requests in IIS, because a website was moved from web server A to B, and the DNS wasn’t updated yet. All HTTP requests for the moved website are handled in IIS’ Default Web Site; that’s the wildcard host, and the original host no longer existed there. We needed to match our website and proxy those requests to the new IIS web server. This can either be done using a proxy with IIS URL Rewrite, IIS Application Request Routing (ARR), or a .htaccess file handled by Helicon Ape.

Windows Server grayscale photography of spider

How to block BaiduSpider bot User-Agent?

The Baidu spider (BaiduSpider user agent) can be a real pain to block, especially since it does not respect a robots.txt as it should. This post shows you how to block Baidu Spider bot, using IIS URL Rewrite Module based on its User-Agent string.

Windows Server Microsoft Internet Information Services logo

Remove IIS Server version HTTP Response Header

Windows Server IIS love to tell the world a website runs on IIS. And dito for ASP.NET Framework. But this gives hackers a lot of information, right? Let’s remove the IIS Server header and ASP.NET version headers. Security by obscurity as a pro :-)

Windows Server Microsoft Internet Information Services logo

IIS Outbound Rules with gzip compression

Learn how to use URL Rewrite Outbound Rules in IIS, to offload content from a different server or host name. This way IIS with URL Rewrite acts as a reverse proxy. Add gzip compression to the mix, and this will improve website performance. In this post, I’ll also show you how to fix the URL Rewrite Module error “Outbound rewrite rules cannot be applied when the content of the HTTP response is encoded (“gzip”).” in IIS.

Windows Server

Create your own CDN using IIS Outbound Rules

Here’s how to create a Content Delivery Network (CDN) using IIS outbound rewrite rules. Offload your static content and speed up your website with these tips. Offloading content is important for the performance of your website, because then content is downloaded in parallel and thus faster. A faster website attracts more visitors, is more user friendly, improves CTR and Google SEO.