How to get DocTitle from aspx master pages ?

[Mike Dee]

I posted this back in November 2005 a couple times but did not get any
responses. I'm hoping someone here can please shed some light on this.

I'm new to index server and can't get any DocTitle value back from index
server (it is returned as null) for all my aspx pages. It do get the values
from inside the <title> tags from my static .htm pages just fine.

My aspx pages however are generated from master pages where the title tag is
set dynamically at run-time. So, it seens like index server is just
indexing my raw .aspx and .cs.aspx pages instead of actually first running
the .aspx page to get its fully rendered content at runtime and then index
that resulting page.

How can I get index server to actually execute my aspx pages like a browser
would request the pages so that it can see the real, dynamically generated
content and index that, and pick up the title tag value for DocTitle?

A few of us were asking this in the index server group but no one there has
ideas. Since I assume many of you are using master pages and run into this
same thing with indexing aspx pages I thought perhaps you'd have some ideas
to share. In case it matters I am running VS.NET 2005 ASP.NET 2.0 on Win2k3
server and IIS 6. Thanks!!

--- Mike

[Ken Cox - Microsoft MVP]

I'm running into the same problem. Index server doesn't seem to be a good
solution because it is file-based.

The best way seems to be to spider your own site "Google style". I'm looking
at an article here on doing that:

http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/Spideroo.asp

Ken
MVP [ASP.NET]

Post by Mike Dee
I posted this back in November 2005 a couple times but did not get any
responses. I'm hoping someone here can please shed some light on this.
I'm new to index server and can't get any DocTitle value back from index
server (it is returned as null) for all my aspx pages. It do get the
values from inside the <title> tags from my static .htm pages just fine.
My aspx pages however are generated from master pages where the title tag
is set dynamically at run-time. So, it seens like index server is just
indexing my raw .aspx and .cs.aspx pages instead of actually first running
the .aspx page to get its fully rendered content at runtime and then index
that resulting page.
How can I get index server to actually execute my aspx pages like a
browser would request the pages so that it can see the real, dynamically
generated
content and index that, and pick up the title tag value for DocTitle?
A few of us were asking this in the index server group but no one there
has ideas. Since I assume many of you are using master pages and run into
this same thing with indexing aspx pages I thought perhaps you'd have some
ideas to share. In case it matters I am running VS.NET 2005 ASP.NET 2.0
on Win2k3 server and IIS 6. Thanks!!
--- Mike

[Hilary Cotter]

aspx pages are indexed using the html ifilter. It can index content it sees
within the html title tags and you can return this using the DocTitle
property. If you want it to index dynamically generated content you must
write your own ifilter and register this with the aspx extension. Another
option is to use something with will connect to your web site and generate
the rendered apsx files and store them in the file system and then have the
html iFilter index them there. You will probably have to do some resolution
back to the original apsx pages however.
--
Hilary Cotter
Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html

Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
http://www.indexserverfaq.com

Post by Mike Dee
I posted this back in November 2005 a couple times but did not get any
responses. I'm hoping someone here can please shed some light on this.
I'm new to index server and can't get any DocTitle value back from index
server (it is returned as null) for all my aspx pages. It do get the
values from inside the <title> tags from my static .htm pages just fine.
My aspx pages however are generated from master pages where the title tag
is set dynamically at run-time. So, it seens like index server is just
indexing my raw .aspx and .cs.aspx pages instead of actually first running
the .aspx page to get its fully rendered content at runtime and then index
that resulting page.
How can I get index server to actually execute my aspx pages like a
browser would request the pages so that it can see the real, dynamically
generated
content and index that, and pick up the title tag value for DocTitle?
A few of us were asking this in the index server group but no one there
has ideas. Since I assume many of you are using master pages and run into
this same thing with indexing aspx pages I thought perhaps you'd have some
ideas to share. In case it matters I am running VS.NET 2005 ASP.NET 2.0
on Win2k3 server and IIS 6. Thanks!!
--- Mike

[Mike Dee]

Hilary,

Thanks - but here's the part I'm not following... You say it can index
content it see within the html title tags. However in an ASP.NET page that
uses MasterPages, there is no hard coded title in the html. Instead there
is a Title property defined which is set in the code behind. So then I
assume this is not possible?

This is really mind boggling how something like Index Server that is
supposed to be so well coupled with IIS/ASP.NET cannot perform such a basic
function.

Certainly with the spread of ASP.NET 2 and MasterPages there must be a ton
of developers that have run into this issue. I would really like to know
how folks are going about solving this.

Thanks!

--- Mike

Post by Hilary Cotter
aspx pages are indexed using the html ifilter. It can index content it
sees within the html title tags and you can return this using the DocTitle
property.