URLs with Hashtags - Does Google Index Them?

[markadoi84]

Hi there,

I have a potential issue with a site whereby all pages are dynamically populated using Javascript.  Thus, an example of an URL on their site would be www.example.com/#!/category/product.

I have read lots of conflicting information on the web - some says Google will ignore everything after the hashtag; other people say that Google will now index everything after the hashtag.

Does anybody have any conclusive information about this?  Any links to Google or Matt Cutts as confirmation would be brilliant.

P.S. I am aware about the potential issue of duplicate content, but I can assure you that has been dealt with.  I am only concerned about whether Google will index full URLs that contain hashtags.

Thanks all!

Mark

[AAPanalytics]

Hi All,

It looks like Google has setup a nice dev site and FAQ page to go over the options here especially when using AJAX and hash tags to link to hidden content. https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/faq#whereinresults.

It looks as if Google will be able to index the content of the entire page (hidden and initially shown) and not create a separate URL if you use a ! before the #. I'd read up on that FAQ page, and play with site commands on the Google dev site.

[markadoi84]

Thankfully Webmaster World were able to provide some decent information, for those of you who have arrived here looking for a similar answer.

There is something called the "hash-bang" which makes javascript pages crawlable.  Hashbang refers to hash (#) bang (!) - so an example would be example.com/#!/page-1.

Here's a great place to read more, understand and learn to implement:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=174992

Cheers all!

[markadoi84]

Here's an example of a # URL which has not  been indexed.

http://dulas.org.uk/hydro-info.cfm#specification_installation

Unlike the site I am working on, this site 'hides' content from the user until they click on a particular tab.  All of the original code is in the source for http://dulas.org.uk/hydro-info.cfm but only shown to the user if they activate the particular piece of javascript when they click on a tab.

The site I am working on is different - it loads content based on javascript, however it essentially loads as a new page - the content is not present in the source until you click no something, when new content will load and the old content will disappear.

Perhaps Google will be able to see that these # pages function much like a normal page, loading completely new content and getting rid of old content, and may therefore index them if I submit them in a sitemap.  However, I'd like to hear from somebody who can tell me they have done this and had success!

Thanks,

Mark

[markadoi84]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for your response. My concern is that # URLs tend to send users to a particular location on a page, rather than a new page itself.  Therefore, some things I have read suggest that Google has adapted to ignore anything after a # in order to avoid indexing an enormous amount of duplicate content.  Strange that there is so much conflicting info out there!

Cheers,

Mark

[Webpresence]

Hi Mark, although I don't have any conclusive evidence I would say that Google does index hashtag URLS.

Think of it this way; when you link within a page using an anchor (#), Google see's the '#' and 'non-# URLS' as unique URLS so logically this does suggest that they do index the full URL.

Hooe that's helped, Lee.