Changing Lotus Notes URL Syntax from "?" into "!" to Fix Search Engine Issue

Mindwatering Incorporated

Author: Tripp W Black

Created: 08/04/2000 at 02:31 AM

 

Category:
Domino Upgrades / Installations
Software (Re)Configuration

Issue:
Search engines cannot handle the ?action (e.g. ?OpenView, ?OpenDocument, etc) and think that this is just a passed variable. It can cause indexing issues.


Solution 1:
Drop the ?action from the URL for reading URLs, and use "plain english" paths.
Obviously, for an edit document action link, you would need the ?EditDocument or !EditDocument action suffix to the URL.

For example:
app.mindwatering.com/appfolder/apppath.nsf/?OpenDatabase
to
app.mindwatering.com/appfolder/apppath.nsf

app.mindwatering.com/appfolder/apppath.nsf/abc123viewuuid64chars/uuidabc1234docuuid64chars
to
app.mindwatering.com/appfolder/apppath.nsf/viewaliasname/Title+of+Document+in+First+Column

Note that this last example of using the document first column value requires that this view column have a descending or ascending sort for the view column.


Solution 2:
Domino can be configured to do a !EditDocument instead of a ?EditDocument.
We implement this solution, as well as the first solution.

To change the Domino server so that it generates dynamic URLs using the exclamation point, you need to change a
single setting in the server document. Then, even the pages you don't directly code/control (like a link from a view to a document)
will be generated using “!”.

If your server is using Internet Sites documents:
1. Administrator client --> Configuration (tab) --> Web (left menu twistie) --> Internet Sites (view link) --> open Web Site Document

2. On the Web Site document, click Domino Web Engine (tab), under Conversion/Display heading:
Set the value of the field "Make this site accessible to Web site search crawlers" to Enabled.
Save and Close the document.

To make this change to the server document:
1. Administrator client --> Configuration (tab) --> Servers (left menu twistie) --> Server Documents (view link)
Select and edit the server document for a server on which you wish to make this change.

2. On the server document, click Internet Protocols (tab) --> Domino Web Engine (tab).
Set the value of the field "Make this site accessible to Web site search crawlers" to Enabled.
Save and Close the document.

3. Restart the Domino HTTP server process.
Administrator client --> Servers (tab) --> Server Console (left menu)
> restart task http

or
> tell http quit
<wait>
> load http


Domino will now display URLs using an explanation point.


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