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How to implement extension-less URL's in Adobe Experience Manager(AEM)

As per the SEO best practices it is better to define extension less URL's to boost the ranking, AEM require the extension to understand and serve incoming request.

This post explains the approach to achieve the extension less URL in Adobe Experience Manager(AEM)

There are two steps

- Rule Configuration Dispatcher
       Remove .html extension from incoming URL with /
Append the .html while invoking the publisher for the URL's ending with /

- AEM etc/map configuration
      Reverse mapping to rewrite the html URL in the pages to extension less
      Forward mapping to map the incoming request to resource

This is tested in AEM 6.2 version

Apache configurations:

#Handle the landing page
RewriteRule ^/$ /en/ [R=301,L]
#Mask the /content/geometrixx-outdoors path
RewriteRule ^/content/geometrixx-outdoors/(.*)(\.html)?$ /$1 [NE,L,R=301]

#Replace the .html with /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.html$
RewriteRule ^/(.*).html$ /$1/ [R=301,L,QSA]

#Append the .html for those URL's ending with / before sending to publisher
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/$
RewriteRule ^/(.*)/$ /$1.html [PT,L,QSA]

Publisher etc/map configurations:

Add the following property

sling:internalRedirect[] - /content/geometrixx-outdoors

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jcr:root xmlns:sling="http://sling.apache.org/jcr/sling/1.0" xmlns:jcr="http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0"
    jcr:primaryType="sling:Mapping"
    sling:internalRedirect="[/content/geometrixx-outdoors]">
    <redirect/>
    <reverse/>
</jcr:root>

Different approach to perform Vanity/Redirect URL management in Adobe Experience Manager(AEM)

In Adobe Experience Manager there is no centralized management UI to manage the Vanity/Redirect URL's also the vanity/Redirects are added into multiple places like Apache and AEM.

This post will explain the different approach to manage the Vanity/Redirect URL through centralized management UI.

Option1: Manage the Vanity URL's through VanityPath page property

• Build a UI application to read vanityPath properties from the repository content nodes and enable management options - Add, Delete, Modification
• Refer the following URL for details on this approach - https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/using/vanitypath.html(only working in 6.1)
• Whitelist vanity paths in dispatcher - https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/dispatcher/using/dispatcher-configuration.html#EnablingAccesstoVanityURLsvanityurls

The same approach can be followed to manage the redirect path enabled in AEM

Vanity URL's are handled in AEM so all the request reaches AEM publisher

Option2 - Manage the Vanity/redirects through AEM UI on XML and redirect through Java Filter

Store the vanity and redirects mapping in a XML file with in AEM repository

<rules>
<rule>
<siteName></siteName>
<code></code>
<sourcePath></sourcePath>
<target></target>

</rule>
<rules>

• Build a UI application to manage the redirects in the file - modify/remove and add new rules
• Replicate the mapping XML to publisher on every modification through replication API
• Build a Java filter that will redirect to the target URL if the vanity path is defined in the XML file(the filter should be restricted only required path)
• Whitelist the vanitypaths in Apache – Expose the vanitypaths through custom URL(Servlet expose the list of vanity URLs by parsing the XML) and configure the URL in Apache for whitelisting(Refer https://helpx.adobe.com/experience-manager/dispatcher/using/dispatcher-configuration.html#EnablingAccesstoVanityURLsvanityurls for apache configuration, the vanity list URL should be custom)

Vanity/Redirects are handled in AEM so all the request reaches AEM publisher