Using ASP.NET 3.5's ListView and DataPager Controls: Creating an SEO-Friendly Paging Interface

<p> The GridView, FormView, and DetailsView controls all contain built-in paging functionality. By setting a few properties, possible to have any of these controls automatically include a paging interface. The ListView, however, does not include built-in paging functionality. Instead, Microsoft decoupled the paging logic from the ListView and moved it into a separate Web control - the DataPager. <a Through Data with the ListView and DataPager Controls</a>, an earlier article in this series, explored how to use the DataPager to implement a paging interface for the ListView. </p><p> By default, the DataPager renders Buttons, LinkButtons, or ImageButtons in the paging interface for the Next, Previous, First, Last, and numeric page number buttons. When clicked, these buttons cause a postback, at which point the appropriate set of records are bound to the ListView. Unfortunately, search engines cannot crawl a site using postbacks; instead, they rely on links they find on your site. Consequently, a search engine will only index the <i>first</i> page of data displayed by a ListView, because it cannot reach the subsequent pages. Also, users cannot bookmark a particular page of data. </p><p> The good news is that it is quite easy to modify the default behavior. This article shows how to configure the DataPager to use hyperlinks and the querystring to page through a data (rather than postbacks) to create an SEO-friendly paging interface. Read on to learn more! <br /><a More &gt;</a></p>

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