WCM tip #20: Hide physical URLs from search when working with Managed Navigation

When working with Managed Navigation check the ‘Hide physical URLs from search’ checkbox for all pages.

One of the new capabilities of SharePoint 2013 for public-facing websites is Managed Navigation. Using a taxonomy Managed Navigation allows you to model the navigation and URLs of your websites. As a result you can decouple the navigation of your website from its physical structure making it easier for your visitors to navigate through the website and at the same time making it easier for webmasters to manage the website. Additionally Managed Navigation allows you to use Friendly URLs: URLs that contain no extension and /pages/ and which are more robust and technology independent.

For the Friendly URLs to work correctly, all Publishing Pages in your website should have the ‘Hide physical URLs from search’ checkbox checked. With this checkbox checked, SharePoint 2013 Search will use the Friendly URL, rather than the physical URL, when referring to pages. Additionally, when working with cross-site publishing, checking this option will ensure that template pages will not be returned in the search results.