Aspnet MVC 4 routing challenges - asp.net-mvc

Question

I want customized routing based on Department Name and Product Name. for example /mobiles/nokia-6303
when i am calling products page it's working fine. when i am calling other than product page like Home page by default following controller and action method is executing
defaults: new { controller = "ContentPage", action = "ProductDetail" }
how to avoid this problem?
routes.MapRoute(
name: "ProductDetailsPage",
url: "/{DepartmentName}/{ProductName}",
defaults: new { controller = "ContentPage", action = "ProductDetail" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" }
);
Thanks in advance
Rajesh

Answer 1

Your routes are exactly the same. It's impossible to differentiate between /DepartmentName/ProductName and /Controller/Action. You need something else in the URL in order to differentiate between the two things, e.g.:
routes.MapRoute(
name: "ProductDetailsPage",
url: "/Products/{DepartmentName}/{ProductName}",
defaults: new { controller = "ContentPage", action = "ProductDetail" }
);
And then navigate to /products/departmentname/productname

Answer 2

Perhaps a slight modification to Ant P's excellent suggestion would be to place the text in between department name and product name?
routes.MapRoute(
name: "ProductDetailsPage",
url: "/{DepartmentName}/Products/{ProductName}",
defaults: new { controller = "ContentPage", action = "ProductDetail" }
);
Or to have details afterwards:
routes.MapRoute(
name: "ProductDetailsPage",
url: "/{DepartmentName}/{ProductName}/details",
defaults: new { controller = "ContentPage", action = "ProductDetail" }
);
Either of these URL approaches might get past your 'SEO team', since it is including soemwhat relevant information within the URL.

Answer 3

As other answers mention, the routing system can't differentiate between {controller}/{action} and {DepartmentName}/{ProductName}.
You can solve this problem by adding a constraint to a route. If a constraint isn't fulfilled, the route won't match the URL. You will probably need to create a custom implementation of IRouteConstraint. I see two options:
Create a constraint for the {controller}/{action} route, that will contain a list of possible names of controllers, that should be use the default URL pattern
Create a constraint for the {DepartmentName}/{ProductName} route, that will check the database (or some in-memory cache) whether department name and product name match some product

Answer 4

finally i have fixed this issue using routing config itself, please find the below code.
foreach (var d in departmentTranslation)
{
routes.MapRoute(
"ContentPage" + d.Name,
d.Name + "/{ProductName}",
new
{
controller = "ContentPage",
action = "ProductDetails",
id = d.DepartmentId,
ProductName = UrlParameter.Optional
});
}