January 06, 2010 ASP .Net upgrade to offer search engine optimization helpers

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With the planned release of Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4 later this year, Microsoft will offer capabilities for SEO (search engine optimization) in the accompanying ASP.Net 4 Web development platform, a Microsoft official said this week.

In a blog entry, Microsoft's Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the company's developer division, stressed that SEO is important for a public-facing Web site. "A large percentage of traffic to sites now comes from search engines, and improving the search relevancy of your site will lead to more user traffic to your site from search engine queries, which can directly or indirectly increase the revenue you make through your site," Guthrie said.

[ Check out InfoWorld's review of the second beta version of Visual Studio 2010. ]

Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4 were to be available on March 22. But the company last month decided to delay the availability by several weeks to address performance issues. ASP.Net is enabled by the .Net Framework.

ASP.Net 4 SEO improvements include runtime features to optimize a site for SEO, including Page MetaKeywords and Page MetaDescription properties, URL routing support for ASP.Net Web Forms, and a Response.RedirectPermanent method.

Page MetaKeywords and Page MetaDescription properties assist with outputting relevant keywords and description <meta> tags within the <head> section of HTML. These properties are featured in ASP.Net 4 Web Forms.