ColdFusion programmers can harness the power of SEO friendly URLS in their applications by utilizing the URL Rewrite module which is built into IIS 7+ (or .htaccess on Linux boxes.) 

First of all, by Search Engine Friendly, I am referring to a URL that looks something like this.

http://www.domain.com/news/123/ford-trucks-for-sale/

Without URL Rewrite, ColdFusion programmers would normally have to physically create those directories on the server in order to process that URL.

Like this...

With a simple URL Rewrite Rule, you can process that URL very easily. The Rewrite Rule processes the URL so that ColdFusion can understand it.

This SEO friendly URL...

http://www.domain.com/news/123/ford-trucks-for-sale/

becomes...

http://www.domain.com/news/index.cfm?id=123&title=ford-trucks-for-sale

… so ColdFusion can understand it.

Pretty awesome right? Here’s how you do it.

1. Create a new URL Rewrite Rule in IIS. 

2. Create a Blank Rule.

3. Your rule should look something like this...
   1. Pattern:  ^news/([0-9]+)/([_0-9a-z-]+)
   2. Rewrite URL:  /news/index.cfm?id={R:1}&title={R:2}

What this actually does is creates a new rule in your web.config file that looks like this...

Let me know if this article was helpful. 

Bob Bell
Certified Senior ColdFusion Developer since 1997

http://www.fullblownwebdesign.com