Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. How to deal with old, indexed hashbang URLs?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How to deal with old, indexed hashbang URLs?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    4
    2857
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Celts18
      Celts18 last edited by

      I inherited a site that used to be in Flash and used hashbang URLs (i.e.  www.example.com/#!page-name-here).  We're now off of Flash and have a "normal" URL structure that looks something like this:  www.example.com/page-name-here

      Here's the problem:  Google still has thousands of the old hashbang (#!) URLs in its index.  These URLs still work because the web server doesn't actually read anything that comes after the hash.  So, when the web server sees this URL  www.example.com/#!page-name-here, it basically renders this page www.example.com/# while keeping the full URL structure intact  (www.example.com/#!page-name-here).  Hopefully, that makes sense.  So, in Google you'll see this URL indexed (www.example.com/#!page-name-here), but if you click it you essentially are taken to our homepage content (even though the URL isn't exactly the canonical homepage URL...which s/b www.example.com/).

      My big fear here is a duplicate content penalty for our homepage.  Essentially, I'm afraid that Google is seeing thousands of versions of our homepage.  Even though the hashbang URLs are different, the content (ie. title, meta descrip, page content) is exactly the same for all of them. Obviously, this is a typical SEO no-no.  And, I've recently seen the homepage drop like a rock for a search of our brand name which has ranked #1 for months.  Now, admittedly we've made a bunch of changes during this whole site migration, but this #! URL problem just bothers me. I think it could be a major cause of our homepage tanking for brand queries.

      So, why not just 301 redirect all of the #! URLs?  Well, the server won't accept traditional 301s for the #! URLs because the # seems to screw everything up (server doesn't acknowledge what comes after the #).

      I "think" our only option here is to try and add some 301 redirects via Javascript. Yeah, I know that spiders have a love/hate (well, mostly hate) relationship w/ Javascript, but I think that's our only resort.....unless, someone here has a better way?

      If you've dealt with hashbang URLs before, I'd LOVE to hear your advice on how to deal w/ this issue.

      Best,

      -G

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • belasco
        belasco Subscriber last edited by

        Celts,

        Did you ever resolve this? What you were discussing back in 2012 is called a "hashbang", and you can learn more about it here on Google. It is technically a way to get AJAX-loaded pages indexed on their own URL.

        You asked this question a couple of years ago, and things have changed since then with push states and HTML 5 being preferred over hashbangs, and not loading a page's content with AJAX still the recommendation when possible.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Celts18
          Celts18 @jenmcardle last edited by

          Thanks for your answer.  Yeah, I've seen the hash tag function as you've described it when being used for named anchors.  However, in my case, Google IS indexing the URLs that contain the #! and it is also grabbing my homepage's title and using it in the SERPs on those results.  So, given that that's happening, I'm concerned that the #! IS hurting me in this case.

          In thinking more about this, I think what I'll do is put a canonical tag on the homepage and that should hopefully provide the extra guidance/insurance that I need to tell spiders that there is only ONE version of the homepage.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • jenmcardle
            jenmcardle last edited by

            Google ignores the hash tag when indexing URLs. You can offer your home page with various versions of hash tags appended to the end of the URL and Google will not mind a bit. It will not case any issue for SEO.

            A few more notes:

            • Hash tags are used in HTML as an onpage anchor. Wikipedia is a good example. Take a look at the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar. If you hover over the HISTORY link in the Table of Contents at the top of the page, notice the URL for the HISTORY link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar#History. When you click the link, you remain on the same page but move to the History part of the page.

            If you search Google.com for "Guitar History" you will notice the WIki page is listed first. (see attachment). The URL offered by Google is the page URL without any hash tag. Google does offer the ability to "Jump to History" which includes the hash tag link. That is a benefit to using anchor text on a page. Otherwise Google does not take the hash tag nor anything after it into account when indexing pages.

            Rand offers a short video on this exact topic: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-using-the-hash

            I am not familiar with the exclamation point (bang) being used after the hash tag outside of twitter. The standard twitter URLs use it.

            Summary - the hash bag is not the reason for your recent drop in rankings.

            I am unclear what you mean by "Google still has thousands of the old hashbang (#!) URLs in its index." Can you share an example?

            google-hashtag.png

            Celts18 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            Browse Questions

            Explore more categories

            • Moz Tools

              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

            • SEO Tactics

              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

            • Community

              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

            • Digital Marketing

              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

            • Research & Trends

              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

            • Support

              Connect on product support and feature requests.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • Bryggselv.no

              How can I make a list of all URLs indexed by Google?

              I started working for this eCommerce site 2 months ago, and my SEO site audit revealed a massive spider trap. The site should have been 3500-ish pages, but Google has over 30K pages in its index. I'm trying to find a effective way of making a list of all URLs indexed by Google. Anyone? (I basically want to build a sitemap with all the indexed spider trap URLs, then set up 301 on those, then ping Google with the "defective" sitemap so they can see what the site really looks like and remove those URLs, shrinking the site back to around 3500 pages)

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryggselv.no
              0
            • andyheath

              Magento: Should we disable old URL's or delete the page altogether

              Our developer tells us that we have a lot of 404 pages that are being included in our sitemap and the reason for this is because we have put 301 redirects on the old pages to new pages. We're using Magento and our current process is to simply disable, which then makes it a a 404. We then redirect this page using a 301 redirect to a new relevant page. The reason for redirecting these pages is because the old pages are still being indexed in Google. I understand 404 pages will eventually drop out of Google's index, but was wondering if we were somehow preventing them dropping out of the index by redirecting the URL's, causing the 404 pages to be added to the sitemap. My questions are: 1. Could we simply delete the entire unwanted page, so that it returns a 404 and drops out of Google's index altogether? 2. Because the 404 pages are in the sitemap, does this mean they will continue to be indexed by Google?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andyheath
              0
            • tomcraig86

              Canonical URL & sitemap URL mismatch

              Hi We're running a Magento store which doesn't have too much stock rotation. We've implemented a plugin that will allow us to give products custom canonical URLs (basically including the category slug, which is not possible through vanilla Magento). The sitemap feature doesn't pick up on these URLs, so we're submitting URLs to Google that are available and will serve content, but actually point to a longer URL via a canonical meta tag. The content is available at each URL and is near identical (all apart from the breadcrumbs) All instances of the page point to the same canonical URL We are using the longer URL in our internal architecture/link building to show this preference My questions are; Will this harm our visibility? Aside from editing the sitemap, are there any other signals we could give Google? Thanks

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tomcraig86
              0
            • J_Sinclair

              How to deal with URLs and tabbed content

              Hi All, We're currently redesigning a website for a new home developer and we're trying to figure out the best way to deal with tabbed content in the URL structure. The design of the site at the moment will have a page for a development and within that you can select your house type, then when on the house type page there will be tabs displayed for the user to see things like the plot map, availability and pricing, specifications, etc. The way our development team are looking at handling this is for the URL to use a hashtag or a query string at the end of it so we can still land users on these specific tabs for PPC for example. My question is really, has anyone had any experience with this? Any recommendations on how to best display the urls for SEO? Thanks

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J_Sinclair
              0
            • nicole.healthline

              Best way to permanently remove URLs from the Google index?

              We have several subdomains we use for testing applications. Even if we block with robots.txt, these subdomains still appear to get indexed (though they show as blocked by robots.txt. I've claimed these subdomains and requested permanent removal, but it appears that after a certain time period (6 months)? Google will re-index (and mark them as blocked by robots.txt). What is the best way to permanently remove these from the index? We can't use login to block because our clients want to be able to view these applications without needing to login. What is the next best solution?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline
              0
            • theLotter

              Should pages of old news articles be indexed?

              My website published about 3 news articles a day and is set up so that old news articles can be accessed through a "back" button with articles going to page 2 then page 3 then page 4, etc... as new articles push them down.  The pages include a link to the article and a short snippet. I was thinking I would want Google to index the first 3 pages of articles, but after that the pages are not worthwhile.  Could these pages harm me and should they be noindexed and/or added as a canonical URL to the main news page - or is leaving them as is fine because they are so deep into the site that Google won't see them, but I also won't be penalized for having week content? Thanks for the help!

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter
              0
            • seoppc2012

              Does Google index url with hashtags?

              We are setting up some Jquery tabs in a page that will produce the same url with hashtags. For example: index.php#aboutus, index.php#ourguarantee, etc. We don't want that content to be crawled as we'd like to prevent duplicate content. Does Google normally crawl such urls or does it just ignore them? Thanks in advance.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoppc2012
              0
            • ukss1984

              URL Error or Penguin Penalty?

              I am currently having a major panic as our website www.uksoccershop.com has been largely dropped from Google. We have not made any changes recently and I am not sure why this is happening, but having heard all sorts of horror stories of penguin update, I am fearing the worst. If you google "uksoccershop" you will see that the homepage does not rank. We previously ranked in the top 3 for "football shirts" but now we don't, although on page 2, 3 and 4 you will see one of our category pages ranking (this didn't used to happen). Some rankings are intact, but many have disappeared completely and in some cases been replaced by other pages on our site. I should point out our existing rankings have been consistently there for 5-6 years until today. I logged into webmaster tools and thankfully there is no warning message from Google about spam, etc, but what we do have is 35,000 URL errors for pages which are accessible. An example of this is: | URL: | http://www.uksoccershop.com/categories/5_295_327.html | | Error details In Sitemaps Linked from Last crawled: 6/20/12First detected: 6/15/12Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request. Is it possible this is the cause of the issue (we are not currently sure why the URL's are being blocked) and if so, how severe is it and how recoverable?If that is unlikely to cause the issue, what would you recommend our next move is?All help is REALLY REALLY appreciated 🙂

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ukss1984
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.