Sitecore Media Items Extensions and SEO

Sitecore Media Items Extensions and SEO

  April 15, 2018    Sitecore Box

---

Introduction

Sitecore stored all media URLs that referenced inside RTE (Rich Text Editor) with .ashx extension. This will may cause a problem with old browsers that use the extension instead of applying the MIME type in the HTTP response header, and also for SEOs that allow filtering results by extension.

How to use the original extension?

A.   Change the settings for the uploaded files in the future.

To solve this problem we need to update the configuration for Sitecore to use the original file extensions rather than .ashx. To do so we need to update ‘Media.RequestExtension’ setting in config file.

What we should have to do is create new config file contains the below content and put the file under App_Config\Include folder:

	<configuration xmlns:patch="https://www.sitecore.com/xmlconfig/">
	<sitecore>
	<settings>
	<setting name="Media.RequestExtension">
	<patch:attribute name="value"></patch:attribute>
	</setting>
	</settings>
	</sitecore>
	</configuration>

view raw Media Extension hosted with ❤ by GitHub

B. How to force the RTE to add item extension instead of .ashx?

The big challenge here is how to update all media links which are already stored in RTE or File fields?

The below code snippet will solve this issue by looping on all items which have media links with .ashx extension and replace the extension with the original one:

	using Sitecore.Data;
	using Sitecore.Data.Fields;
	using Sitecore.Data.Items;
	using System;
	using System.Collections.Generic;
	using System.Linq;
	using System.Text;
	using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
	using System.Threading.Tasks;
	namespace MediaLinks
	{
	public class MediaLinksExtUpdate
	{
	/// <summary>
	/// Replacing (.ashx) extension for media library items inside RTE with the original extensions
	/// </summary>
	public void ChangeMediaExtenstions()
	{
	// Get the master database
	Database master = Sitecore.Data.Database.GetDatabase("master");
	//Get Media Library item
	Item mediaLibraryItem = master.GetItem("{9E857E70-2F5D-4B68-A60C-C03135ACE0AC}");
	//Get the root item
	Item rootItem = master.GetItem(Sitecore.ItemIDs.ContentRoot);
	//List of all media IDs inside RTE
	List<string> lstMediaIDs;
	Sitecore.Data.ID sitecoreMediaID;
	Guid guidID;
	Item mediaItem;
	bool itemPublished = false;
	//Field Name for Media library items
	string strExtFieldName = "Extension";
	//Temp variable for storing the item Name/ID with it's original value
	string strNewValue = string.Empty;
	//Update all items under the root item
	foreach (Item item in rootItem.Axes.GetDescendants())
	{
	itemPublished = false;
	//Loop on all fields for each item
	foreach (Sitecore.Data.Fields.Field field in item.Fields)
	{
	//Check if this field is RTE (rich text editor)
	if ((FieldTypeManager.GetField(field) is HtmlField || FieldTypeManager.GetField(field) is FileField) && !field.Name.StartsWith("__"))
	{
	//check if the RTE contains andy media library item with '.ashx' extension
	if (field.Value.ToLower().Contains(".ashx"))
	{
	//Get all IDs for all media items with '.ashx' extension
	lstMediaIDs = GetAllMediaIDs(field.Value);
	//Change the extension for every media item
	foreach (string mediaName in lstMediaIDs)
	{
	//Check if Media item is referenced by Sitecore ID (Guid)
	if (Guid.TryParse(mediaName, out guidID))
	{
	sitecoreMediaID = new Sitecore.Data.ID(guidID);
	//Get the original item of this item from Media Libarary by 'ID'
	mediaItem = mediaLibraryItem.Axes.GetDescendants().Where(x => x.ID == sitecoreMediaID).FirstOrDefault();
	}
	//If the Media item is referenced by Name
	else
	{
	//Get the original item of this item from Media Libarary by 'Name'
	mediaItem = mediaLibraryItem.Axes.GetDescendants().Where(x => x.Name == mediaName).FirstOrDefault();
	}
	if (mediaItem != null && mediaItem.Fields[strExtFieldName] != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(mediaItem.Fields[strExtFieldName].Value))
	{
	//Get the original extension for the media item
	strNewValue = mediaName + "." + mediaItem.Fields[strExtFieldName].Value;
	using (new Sitecore.SecurityModel.SecurityDisabler())
	{
	item.Editing.BeginEdit();
	try
	{
	/*
	Replacing the old value of media library item with a new value with the original extension
	For example:
	Old value :/9E857E70-2F5D-4B68-A60C-C03135ACE0AC.ashx
	New value :/9E857E70-2F5D-4B68-A60C-C03135ACE0AC.jpg
	*/
	field.Value = field.Value.Replace(mediaName + ".ashx", strNewValue);
	item.Editing.EndEdit();
	if (!itemPublished)
	{
	//Publishing item to 'web' database
	PublishItem(item);
	itemPublished = true;
	}
	}
	catch (System.Exception ex)
	{
	Sitecore.Diagnostics.Log.Error("Could not update item " + item.Paths.FullPath + ": " + ex.Message, this);
	item.Editing.CancelEdit();
	}
	}
	}
	}
	}
	}
	}
	}
	}
	/// <summary>
	/// Publishing this item to 'web' database
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="item">item to be published</param>
	private void PublishItem(Sitecore.Data.Items.Item item)
	{
	// The publishOptions determine the source and target database,
	// the publish mode and language, and the publish date
	Sitecore.Publishing.PublishOptions publishOptions =
	new Sitecore.Publishing.PublishOptions(item.Database,
	Database.GetDatabase("web"),
	Sitecore.Publishing.PublishMode.SingleItem,
	item.Language,
	System.DateTime.Now); // Create a publisher with the publishoptions
	Sitecore.Publishing.Publisher publisher = new Sitecore.Publishing.Publisher(publishOptions);
	// Choose where to publish from
	publisher.Options.RootItem = item;
	// Publish children as well?
	publisher.Options.Deep = false;
	// Do the publish!
	publisher.Publish();
	}
	/// <summary>
	/// This Method return all matched strings as a list between forward slash '/' and '.ashx'
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="strSource">Source string</param>
	/// <returns></returns>
	public List<string> GetAllMediaIDs(string strSource)
	{
	List<string> result = new List<string>();
	foreach (string item in Regex.Matches(strSource, @"([^/]+)(?=\.ashx)").Cast<Match>().Select(m => m.Value))
	{
	result.Add(item);
	}
	return result;
	}
	}
	}

view raw MediaLinksExtUpdate hosted with ❤ by GitHub