In Sitecore 6.0, a new Link Manager class has been added. In the web.config, a few properties affect the functionality of the Link Manager. I've already posted on the EncodeNames property (fyi, default value : false).

The AddAspxExtension Property

On the surface, I can clearly relate to the functionality of this property. If this is set to false, we are instructing Sitecore to render links (i.e via <sc:link>) without any extensions. This is (alledgedly) GREAT NEWS for SEO experts. If you leverage this functionality with some Url Rewriting (either via Helicon Isapi Rewrite Lite (free)  or UrlRewriter.Net ), you must be thinking that you will have a Sitecore front-end website without any extensions.

The Glitch...

If you spent most of your time in implementing regular expressions to rewrite (under the hood) those extensionless links to .aspx and feed them back to Sitecore, Well...I'm afraid you have wasted your precious time (no matter how cool your regex expressions are!!). The moment you try to access the Content Editor in the CMS, you  simply receive some weird error messages. Sometimes, it's the dreaded YSOD (Object Reference not set to an instance of an object) or occasionally a 404 page welcomes you. With the AddAspxExtension property set to false, you might end up with a fancy looking frontend and NO backend support at all. Not very usefull... Did a bit of research on SDN5, turns out that the symptoms are correct

This has led me to believe that, in the midst of tackling problems that vary in programming complexity and requirements , always take a step back and test both the front end and back end when dealing with "unchanted territories".

And then...

The search to build an SEO friendly website in Sitecore continues.. Surely, I'll get the better of this (it's just a matter of time...why not build up the suspense?)  and will let you know how I did it !!!! 

Back to Sitecore now....