Question

I wasn’t able to put the write words for the Title, so I explained what I’m looking after.

Currently, I am using following ActionLink code in View.

@Html.ActionLink(@product.Name, "Index", "Product", new { id = @product.Id }, null)

This code redirects to following action method in Product Controller

public ActionResult Index(int id)
{
    Product product = pe.Products.Where(p => p.Id == id).First();
    ViewBag.Title = product.Name;
    ViewBag.Description = product.MetaDescription;
    ViewBag.Keywords = product.MetaKeywords;
    return View(product);
}  

Now, what i want: instead of mysite.com/Product/Index/22 , my URL should be something like mysite.com/Product/Apple-ipad.

I know, I can use product Name instead of Id and pass it to the action method. But, this way i think that the queries will get slower since Id field is indexed but Name isn’t. Is this the only option at my disposal. Let me know how will you handle this requirement.

Answer 1

Use the product name in the route instead of ID and put a nonclustered index on the product name column in the database.

That way you don’t get a performance hit on the select (although you will get one on the insert/update/delete but I suspect those happen far less than the selects).

CREATE INDEX IX_[index_name] 
ON [schema].[table_name] ([column_name]); 

Another way I’ve seen used in a few places is using both the name and the id like mysite.com/Product/Apple-ipad/22. The name is not actually used by the code, and it’s just there for SEO. One big disadvantage of this is that someone that does not like your site can put various urls leading to the same content all over the internet for google to find. Google doesn’t like that so your site is penalized and you are worse than before.