Enable seo friendly url in websphere portal

Enable SEO URL in
WebSphere Portal
Michele Buccarello
2/4/2015
This document describe a way to implement friendly SEO URL in WebSphere Portal

Enable SEO URL in WebSphere Portal
Websphere Portal SEO Friendly URL
Author:Michele Buccarello Page 1
Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................. 2
REMOVING THE RICH STATE FROM PORTAL AND WCM CONTENT .................................................................. 2
Configuring portal for friendly url ................................................................................................................. 3
Enable base url in theme............................................................................................................................... 5
Edit the navigation jsp................................................................................................................................... 6
Create a java filter for WCM url .................................................................................................................... 7
Conclusion about rich state........................................................................................................................... 9
Remove the context url /wps/portal............................................................................................................... 10
Create an apache reverse proxy.................................................................................................................. 10
Enable modules ........................................................................................................................................... 10
Configure Apache as reverse proxy............................................................................................................. 10
How it works................................................................................................................................................ 11
Routing rules............................................................................................................................................ 11
Payload management.............................................................................................................................. 12
Rewrite rule explanation ......................................................................................................................... 12
Proxy Pass and mod_substitute .............................................................................................................. 13
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................... 13

Abstract
In WebSphere Portal the concept around the URL are complex because are not simply URL but are RICH
URL. Portal URL are structured in this way:
Rich state is an xml that contain the portal state, this xml is gzipped and enconded with a modified base64
codec, the only way to decode the state in xml format is use the portal poc ( piece of content ) servlet. In
this presentation http://www.socialbizug.org/files/app#/file/443ae822-48ad-40d1-b106-8750f0e79447 you
could find all information about all concept around the WebSphere Portal URL, is important read this pdf to
understand what you lose if a customer want full friendly SEO url and not partial like normal Portal url.
What we do in this article?
We want display Portal url without context and rich state, in other words :
- From /wps/portal/home/shop/shoes/!ut/p/104_05dsffds90..
- To /home/shop/shoes
What are the assumption we need to archive this goal?
1) Portal Page doesn’t have portlets that made a post to the same page or other page.
2) Portlet wiring attach rich state, don’t use it!
3) WCM url are cleaned with a WCM url filter, without it all WCM url have rich state.
REMOVING THE RICH STATE FROM PORTAL AND WCM CONTENT
In this step we configure portal to remove the rich state from Portal and WCM content. The basics of this
operations are described in this wikis document:
- http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSHRKX_8.5.0/mp/admin-
system/mp_friendly_short_url.dita?lang=en
- http://www-
10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/xpDocViewer.xsp?lookupName=IBM+Web+Content+Manager+8+P
roduct+Documentation#action=openDocument&res_title=Example_2_Generate_a_friendly_URL_f
or_web_content_wcm8&content=pdcontent

- http://www-
10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Implementing_a_clean_URL_in_IBM_WebSphere_Portal_8-
based_WCM_rendering
Configuring portal for friendly url
In the administrative console under resource environment provider click on WP ConfigService
Click on custom properties

Click on button new…
Add the property into the was

Click save
Enable base url in theme
In the Portal theme definition add the property
<parameter name="com.ibm.portal.theme.hasBaseURL" type="string" update="set">true</parameter>
add in the xmlaccess register script this parameter
If you’re theme is already registered retrieve the unique name and run the xml access below
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<request xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_8.5.0.xsd" type="update">
<portal action="locate">
<theme action="update" uniquename="com.ibm.portal.custom.theme.theme85" >
<parameter name="com.ibm.portal.theme.hasBaseURL" type="string" update="set">true</parameter>
</theme>
</portal>
</request>

Edit the navigation jsp
In the navigation.jsp add keepNavigationalState="false" in the portal navigation tags, this particular
property remove the rich state from the portal navigation URL.
Search this string:
- <a href="?uri=nm:oid:${nodeID}"
Replace with this:
- <portal-navigation:urlGeneration contentNode="${nodeID}" keepNavigationalState="false"
allowRelativeURL="true">
<a href="<%wpsURL.write(out);%>"
See the image below.

After the replaced string search the first “</a>” and replace it with </a></portal-navigation:urlGeneration>,
see the image below.
Create a java filter for WCM url
Create new dynamic project with the same projectname and ear name like the image below.

In src package create a package named:
- com.ibm.workplace.wcm.api.rewrite
create into it two java class:
- FriendlyUrlGenerationFilter.java
- FriendlyUrlGenerationFilterFactory.java
The functional sample content is located in this links:
- http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Example_2_Filter_class_wcm8
- http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Example_2_Filter_factory_class_wcm8
Under the webcontent WEB-INF create the plugin.xml and write the information below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<plugin id="com.ibm.workplace.wcm.api.rewrite.plugin" name="URL generation filter"
version="1.0.0" provider-name="IBM">
<extension
point="com.ibm.workplace.wcm.api.ContentUrlGenerationFilter"
id="UrlGenerationFilter">
<factory
class="com.ibm.workplace.wcm.api.rewrite.FriendlyUrlGenerationFilterFactory"
weight="4"/>
</extension>
</plugin>
The structure must be like the image below.
At this point you could install the ear in portal and set the startup behavior to a number upper than WCM
ear startup number (normally 21 is a right number). We need to do this change to ensure the connections
between WCM and the filter extension point.

Conclusion about rich state
With this four step after e Portal restart we successful remove the rich state from all page that use the
theme with the customized navigation jsp and from all WCM contents.

Remove the context url /wps/portal
Websphere Portal for security reason have two area, one for anonymous users and one for authenticated
users:
- /wps/portal anonymous
- /wps/myportal authenticated
We remove the context root only for anonymous user to prevent security related problems.
Create an apache reverse proxy
To create an apache reverse proxy we a lot of way, personally I prefer opensuse because have a built in
apache with a structured folders, in this guide http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Apache_installation you could
find all information about apache installation. After a successful installation we need to create a virtualhost
as documented in the guide.
Enable modules
Apache 2.2 has a lot of built-in modules, opensuse by default don’t enable it when you do the first
installation, to enable it you need to edit the file /etc/sysconfig/apache2 , inside it there is a variabile
called APACHE_MODULES append to the end of this variabile this modules:
- rewrite http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html
- proxy http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy.html
- proxy_http http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy_http.html
- substitute http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_substitute.html
This modules are required to configure apache to act as a reverse proxy and manipulate http requests and
payload. In the apache foundation site you could find all information for every modules.
Configure Apache as reverse proxy
Below the piece of configuration you need to configure routing and payload manipulation to the
WebSphere Portal Installation request and response.
# used for mantain old link in external forum and site and with a 301 redirect
RewriteRule ^/holidays/old-link?$ /holidays/new-link [L,R=301]
# this rewrite rule with proxy transparent use a regulare expresion to manage all context root different
to the main route /wps/portal
# the /wps escape all route to the servlets poc mypoc contenthandler mycontenthandler and all portlets
# customThemeStatic and customThemeDynamic are the context root to my custom theme

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/(wps/|customThemeStatic/|customThemeDynamic/)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /wps/portal$1 [L,PT]
#this rewrite masquerade the landing page and remove the path to it
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.it
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(/)?$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ /wps/portal/home [PT,NC]
ProxyPass / http://www.example.it/
<Location / >
ProxyPassReverse http://www.example.it/
#this output filter simly parse the HTTP payload and remove /wps/portal from it, finally add /wps/portal
only to the html tag base url
#this is required to the portal javascript framework
AddOutputFilterByType SUBSTITUTE text/html
# remove /wps/portal from the payload
Substitute "s|/wps/portal||nfq"
# add to the base url tag /wps/portal to prevent issue with the portal javascript framework
Substitute "s|www.example.it|www.example.it/wps/portal|nfq"
</Location>
How it works
In this area we explain how the solution it works.
Routing rules
To archive this result we divide all uri in two groups:
- All uri different from “/wps/portal”
- All uri that match “/wps/portal”
In the first group there are:
- all common servlet like poc (/wps/poc) , mypoc (/wps/mypoc) , contenthandler
(/wps/contenthandler), mycontenthandler (/wps/mycontenthandler)
- all authenticated portal uri (/wps/mycontenthandler)
- all portlets (/wps/PA_* )
- all predeployed portlet (/custom_context_root)
- all filters, OSGI plugin and so on (/custom_context_root)

In the second group we identify all uri that must be routed to /wps/portal. To identify this uri we must use
a negative approach because with the mod_substitute we remove /wps/portal from the payload.
With these assumptions we made all rewrite rule to setup the right routing.
Payload management
There are two possibile way to manage the payload:
- Application server side with a servlet filter
- HTTP Server side with HTTP Filter module
We choose the second way because:
- From apache 2.2 we have a built solution that provide an in memory payload rewrite with the
mod_substitute.
- Performance scalability, it is quite simple to install more HTTP server than install more WebSphere
Portal installation.
- A servlet filter interact with all HTTP request and response, portal have a set of built-in servlet
filter, this means you must understand how to manage the servlet filter chain.
- With a simple regular expression we could manage all routing request directly from the HTTP
Server.
Rewrite rule explanation
This rewrite url match with a negative condition all http request that must be routed to /wps/portal
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/(wps/|customThemeStatic/|customThemeDynamic/)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /wps/portal$1 [L,PT]
This rewrite rule masquerade the homepage url
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.it
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(/)?$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ /wps/portal/home [PT,NC]

Proxy Pass and mod_substitute
All HTTP request skipped in the first rewrite rule are routed with the proxy pass directive
ProxyPass / http://www.example.it/
All response are manage inside the <location /> tag, inside this you could see the substitute that rewrite
the payload.
<Location / >
ProxyPassReverse http://www.example.it/
AddOutputFilterByType SUBSTITUTE text/html
Substitute "s|/wps/portal||nfq"
Substitute "s|www.example.it|www.example.it/wps/portal|nfq"
</Location>
CONCLUSION
In this article you have a way and set of rules to implement SEO url in portal, but remember what we say in
the abstract, the /wps/portal don’t affect the SEO ranking of the site.

Enable seo friendly url in websphere portal

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