What are the SEO implications of URLs that use a # in them?
-
I have several clients who have begun to ask questions about sites that are designed to look like a single page. When you click on a link, the URL changes but it uses a # before (i.e. http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa**/#**/teamusa/athletes/kerri-walsh.html. What are the SEO implications of having a page set up this way?
I noticed that Google has indexed this page but the indexed URL does not include a #. Is Google indexing a separate version of this page?
Any insights would be really helpful!
Thanks
-
they are not ranking, the pages that are ranking are here:
do a search for "kerri walsh kelloggs" and look at your URL. when you click on the URL you are being redirected in some fashion to the one URL with the hash.
Has this been like this for a while, because if this is a new implementation it may not be SEO friendly, that's why I suggest you talk to the engineering dept and find out how it was implemented.
http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/
Checked link: http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa/athletes/rebe
cca-soni.htmlType of link: direct link
If google spiders these pages only to get tossed to other unindexable page (also I cannot see your robots.txt by the way) then these pages that are now indexed may wind up getting deindexed:
-
That URL is not even indexed in Google
And this is the code in the source of that URL
<title>Team USAtitle>
<meta name="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>" content="">
This is the real page though:
http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa/athletes/kerr
i-walsh.htmlI checked to see if it is doing a 301 redirect, which it is not so for some reason they are appending /#/teamusa/
All athletes URLs are this way
for some reason (probably taking a short cut on installing the CMS that they built out to create these pages) someone in engineering decided they would do it this way. I would ask around the engineering dept and find out who set this up and maybe you can get some more insight into how it functions to get a better idea of the SEO implications.
As you can see, nothing past the hash is indexed in Google
If this helped you out, please mark the question answered thanks!
-
Thanks for the response Irving.
http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa/#/teamusa/athletes/kerri-walsh.html
The hash is above in this location (teamusa/#/teamusa)
What is interesting is that in this example, individual athlete stories are ranking separately in the SERPs, despite the fact that they use a # to break up the URLs.
-
I don't see the hash tag (#) in your example, but anything in the URL from the hash tag and after is ignored. There are no negative implications other than maybe you would be better in breaking up that one page into a few individually targeted pages for better SEO.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Urls Too Long - Should I shorten?
On the crawl of our website we have had a warning that 157 have urls that are too long. When I look at the urls they are generally from 2016 or earlier. Should I just leave them as they are or shorten the urls and redirect to new url? Thanks
Technical SEO | | DaleZon4 -
Images on Website for SEO
Good Morning, We have a magento website with hundreds of different products that have slight size variations. The image for each of these products looks the same (the only difference between the products is some of the dimensions) .... Would you recommend using the same image for each of these products and just use a generic file name that describes the overall product or would you give each product its own image with it's specific product name as the file name? Should I use 1 image for 500 different sku's or should i rename the file the name of each individual sku and load an individual image? The end user will not know the difference since all of the images will appear identical, simply asking from an SEO perspective. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
Which url should i use? Thanks!
I have a question regarding how to use my url, we are a Swedish-based website which have the url, http://interimslösning.se/ (that contains the Swedish letter “ö”) so the url can also be written as http://xn--interimslsning-3pb.se/. Which of the following url should I use for my backlinks, http://interimslösning.se/ or http://xn--interimslsning-3pb.se/ ? What is the difference between them regarding SEO? And is it good or bad to use letter like "ö" or other characters like that in your url? I was thinking that maybe it is good to use the letter "ö" for local search optimization in sweden, but i don't know.. Thanks in advance! Greetings,
Technical SEO | | Kiwibananlime
Paul Linderoth0 -
Which address do I use for citations
Hello, When I created my google places, I entered my address and when I got my google places activated I noticed that the address google places was displaying was a short abbreviation of my address. So my question is when it comes to creating citations for my listing do I grab the address google places generated for me in the listing or the long version of my address? I've just heard when it comes to creating citations, you need to make sure it is identical across the board. I hope this makes sense. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fbbcseo0 -
Seo Yoast Plugin
In Yoast seo plugin, under the general settings is Sitewide meta settings,under which there is an option to either check or leave unchecked Noindex subpages of archives which says: If you want to prevent /page/2/ and further of any archive to show up in the search results, enable this. I am very confuse if to check or not. What is the best seo practice? Most of our posts are in categories which have 2-4 pages.
Technical SEO | | VillasDiani0 -
Expressionengine SEO
One of my clients is using expressionengine CMS, and even the simplest things like creating unique page titles seem to be a nightmare. When I try to change page title via cms it also changes navigation menu. Any help will be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Thommas0 -
Pintrest SEO
Has any testing been done to determine if Pintrest helps a website ranking?
Technical SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | | upick-1623910