Rack middleware to make Rails deal correctly with GoogleBot's '*/*;q=0.6' Accept header

google_bot_aware.gemspec

Gem::Specification.new do |s|
  s.name        = 'google_bot_aware'
  s.version     = '0.1.0'
  s.platform    = Gem::Platform::RUBY
  s.author      = 'Romain Champourlier'
  s.email       = '[email protected]'
  s.summary     = 'Google Bot Aware'
  s.description = "Strip extra characters from Google Bot's Accept header so that Rails knows to use default MIME type in response."

  s.files         = ['google_bot_aware.rb']
  s.test_file     = 'google_bot_aware_spec.rb'
  s.require_path  = '.'

  s.add_development_dependency('rspec', ["~> 2.0"])
end

google_bot_aware.rb

# This Rack middleware helps solving the issue with some Rails versions which do not accept
# a '*/*;q=0.6' and their variants 'Accept' request header. This header is particularly used
# by Google Bot, and if Rails doesn't like it, it will return a 500 or 406 error to Google Bot,
# which is not the best way to get your pages indexed.
#
# References:
#   - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8881756/googlebot-receiving-missing-template-error-for-an-existing-template
#   - https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/4127
#
class GoogleBotAware

  def initialize(app)
    @app = app
  end

  def call(env)
    # If the request 'Content Accept' header indicates a '*/*' format,
    # we set the format to :html.
    # This is necessary for GoogleBot which requests / with '*/*;q=0.6' for example.
    if env["HTTP_ACCEPT"] =~ %r%\*\/\*;q=\d\.\d%
       env["HTTP_ACCEPT"] = '*/*'
    end

    @app.call(env)
  end

end

google_bot_aware_spec.rb

# spec/integration/google_bot_aware_spec.rb
#
# This integration test is intended to check if your application is correctly managing
# GoogleBot's requests which may have an Accept header looking like this: '*/*;q=0.6'.
#
# This should be the case if GoogleBotAware Rack middleware is correctly loaded, and is
# correctly behaving.
#
describe "GoogleBot aware" do
  
  ['/', 'add-your-own-paths'].each do |path|

    it "should be successful for a Google-Bot-style request on '#{path}'"  do
      get path, nil, {"HTTP_ACCEPT" => "*/*;q=0.6"}
      response.should be_successful
    end
    
  end
end

rack_middlewares.rb

# config/initializers/rack_middlewares.rb
#
# This initializer configures Rack middlewares and loads custom middlewares.

require File.join(Rails.root, 'lib', 'google_bot_aware')

App::Application.configure do
  config.middleware.use("GoogleBotAware")
end