Sometimes it’s easier to create relative URL in development using Url.Content("~/yourimage.png"). It seems to be quicker to code this way. However, there are times that I need to generate absolute URL for public facing websites where SEO matters. Quickly google “why absolute url matters in seo”, there is quite a number of blogs or articles promoting the use of absolute URLs. For example, you can read an article from Moz.com which has a good explanation.

At first, I tried to search for solution to generate them in ASP.NET MVC. Some of them are not quite what I wished for. Thus, it gave me opportunity to create extension method for the System.Web.Mvc.UrlHelper class which will generate absolute URL relative to current HTTP content’s Request.Url property. Also, as we all know that Google prefers HTTPS, I also include an optional parameter ‘forceHttps’ if I would like it in HTTPS format. Look at the following class definition below:

    public static class UrlHelperExtensions
     {
         public static string GenerateAbsoluteUrl(this UrlHelper helper, string path, bool forceHttps = false)
         {
             const string HTTPS = "https";
             var uri = helper.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.Url;
             var scheme = forceHttps ? HTTPS : uri.Scheme;
             var host = uri.Host;
             var port = (forceHttps || uri.Scheme == HTTPS) ? string.Empty : (uri.Port == 80 ? string.Empty : ":" + uri.Port);
         return string.Format("{0}://{1}{2}/{3}", scheme, host, port, string.IsNullOrEmpty(path) ? string.Empty : path.TrimStart('/')); }
     }

Now, let’s say my website is / and my relative URL for image is /media/product/img.jpg. In my ASP.NET MVC Razor view .cshtml, the usage is as below:

    <img src="@Url.GenerateAbsoluteUrl("/media/product/img.jpg")" alt="Your Image">

The generated HTML would be:

    <img src="https://codecultivation.com/media/product/img.jpg" alt="Your Image">

That’s all. Hope it can help someone looking for ways to build absolute URL.

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns below.

Thanks.