How to Disable JSESSIONID in Tomcat Servlet URL for Better SEO?

Is it possible to turn off JSESSIONID in the URL in Tomcat? The JSESSIONID parameter appears to be not search engine friendly.

JSESSIONID is a session identifier used by Tomcat to manage user sessions. By default, Tomcat appends this identifier in the URL when cookies are disabled. However, having JSESSIONID in the URL can be detrimental to SEO, as it complicates URLs and may lead to duplicate content issues. Fortunately, you can disable the URL encoding of the JSESSIONID by configuring your Tomcat server properly.

<session-config>
  <tracking-mode>COOKIE</tracking-mode>
</session-config>

Causes

• JSESSIONID is automatically included in URLs when sessions are maintained without cookies.
• This behavior can lead to longer and less user-friendly URLs.

Solutions

• Use HTTP sessions with cookie support to avoid JSESSIONID in the URL.
• Edit the web.xml file to configure session management and disable URL-based sessions.
• Ensure your application properly handles sessions via cookies. Add the following to your web.xml:
• <session-config><cookie-config><http-only>true</http-only></cookie-config></session-config>

Mistake: Not configuring session tracking mode in web.xml

Solution: Make sure to set the <tracking-mode> to COOKIE in your web.xml file.

Mistake: Forgetting to test changes in multiple scenarios.

Solution: Always test after making configuration changes to ensure sessions are maintained correctly.