This post will tell you about Dynamic And Friendly URL Using ASP.NET MVC. Dynamic URL is a great feature working with MVC. Friendly URLs are even better. The following approach, I think, is the best way to work with friendly URL. So, let's define some premises. The URLs must be stored in a Repository. This means, I want to change and create new URLs in my repository. One or more URLs can be pointed to the same Controller/Action. This means, I want to have alias for URLs;
If a URL does not exist in my Repository, try to resolve it using MVC Controller/Action default behavior. It means, the MVC default behavior will still work;
The URL cannot contain an ID at the end. It means that the last segment of those URLs can be a long ID number.

First of all, MVC does not have a built-in feature for dynamic and friendly URLs. You must write your own custom code.

For solution, we will need the following.

  • An MVC project;
  • A class to handle route requests;
  • A route repository;
  • Controllers and Views;

PS-  I will not use a database to store those URLs but I will use the repository pattern and dependency resolver to configure it. So, you can create a database repository in future.

Class that identifies a URL -

Handlers/UrlHandler.cs
public sealed class UrlHandler { 
public static UrlRouteData GetRoute(string url) { 
    url = url ? ? "/"; 
    url = url == "/" ? "" : url; 
    url = url.ToLower(); 

    UrlRouteData urlRoute = null; 

    using(var repository = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService < IRouteRepository > ()) { 
        var routes = repository.Find(url); 
        var route = routes.FirstOrDefault(); 
        if (route != null) { 
            route.Id = GetIdFromUrl(url); 
            urlRoute = route; 
            urlRoute.Success = true; 
        } else { 
            route = GetControllerActionFromUrl(url); 
            urlRoute = route; 
            urlRoute.Success = false; 
        } 
    } 

    return urlRoute; 


private static RouteData GetControllerActionFromUrl(string url) { 
    var route = new RouteData(); 

    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) { 
        var segmments = url.Split('/'); 
        if (segmments.Length >= 1) { 
            route.Id = GetIdFromUrl(url); 
            route.Controller = segmments[0]; 
            route.Action = route.Id == 0 ? (segmments.Length >= 2 ? segmments[1] : route.Action) : route.Action; 
        } 
    } 

    return route; 


private static long GetIdFromUrl(string url) { 
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) { 
        var segmments = url.Split('/'); 
        if (segmments.Length >= 1) { 
            var lastSegment = segmments[segmments.Length - 1]; 
            long id = 0; 
            long.TryParse(lastSegment, out id); 

            return id; 
        } 
    } 

    return 0; 

}

Route Handler that handles all requests.

Handlers/UrlRouteHandler.cs
public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)  

var routeData = requestContext.RouteData.Values; 
var url = routeData["urlRouteHandler"] as string; 
var route = UrlHandler.GetRoute(url); 

routeData["url"] = route.Url; 
routeData["controller"] = route.Controller; 
routeData["action"] = route.Action; 
routeData["id"] = route.Id; 
routeData["urlRouteHandler"] = route; 

return new MvcHandler(requestContext); 
}

The route handler configuration.

App_Start/RouteConfig.cs

public class RouteConfig  

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)  

    routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}"); 

    routes.MapRoute( 
        "IUrlRouteHandler", 
        "{*urlRouteHandler}").RouteHandler = new UrlRouteHandler(); 

}


Repository/IRouteRepository.cs
public interface IRouteRepository: IDisposable  

IEnumerable < RouteData > Find(string url); 
}

Repository/StaticRouteRepository.cs

public class StaticRouteRepository: IRouteRepository 

public void Dispose() { 



public IEnumerable < RouteData > Find(string url) { 
    var routes = new List < RouteData > (); 
    routes.Add(new RouteData() { 
        RoouteId = Guid.NewGuid(), 
            Url = "how-to-write-file-using-csharp", 
            Controller = "Articles", 
            Action = "Index" 
    }); 
    routes.Add(new RouteData() { 
        RoouteId = Guid.NewGuid(), 
            Url = "help/how-to-use-this-web-site", 
            Controller = "Help", 
            Action = "Index" 
    }); 

    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) { 
        var route = routes.SingleOrDefault(r => r.Url == url); 
        if (route == null) { 
            route = routes.FirstOrDefault(r => url.Contains(r.Url)) ? ? routes.FirstOrDefault(r => r.Url.Contains(url)); 
        } 

        if (route != null) { 
            var newRoutes = new List < RouteData > (); 
            newRoutes.Add(route); 

            return newRoutes; 
        } 
    } 

    return new List < RouteData > (); 

}


I have created 2 URLs. One URL will point to the Help Controller while the other one to the Articles Controller. For dependency resolver configuration, I used Ninject.
App_Start/NinjectWebCommon.cs
private static void RegisterServices(IKernel kernel) 

kernel.Bind < Repository.IRouteRepository > ().To < Repository.StaticRouteRepository > (); 
}