Editor's Note: This was written in August 2009. Changes to ASP.NET 4.0 are expected that will impact the validity of some of the findings in this article in the future.

One of the features of ASP.NET 4.0 is built-in support for Bi-directional URL Routing. With VS 2010 Beta 1 out for sometime, I dig into more details with some hands-on work. In this article I will show the implementation of URL routing with .NET framework 4 Beta 1. It will also cover benefits of URL routing and changes with ASP.NET 4.0. Mainly we will be seeing how ASP.NET 4.0 makes things easier by implementing bi-directional routing with the help of components like RouteTable, PageRouteHandler and ExpressionBuilders. This allows ASP.NET 4.0 users to easily decouple URLs from physical files.

Why URL Routing

URL is now considered as a part of User Interface (UI) and needs proper attention. Some of the advantages are:

·         Help in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and hence improve page hits by putting relevant keywords in the URL.

·         Users are becoming more tech savvy and find directly manipulating the URL easier than inputting text boxes and clicking buttons.

·         Short and easy to type URLs are good.

·         URLs are persistent i.e. users do not want to rely on your page names and folder structure when application is accessed. For e.g. if a user bookmarks a page and for some reasons developer need to restructure the code files. User might not get to the same page through the same bookmark.