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.

      Enhance Keyword Discovery with Bulk Analysis
      Moz Pro

      Enhance Keyword Discovery with Bulk Analysis

      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

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      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 do you 301 redirect URLs with a hashbang (#!) format? We just lost a ton of pagerank because we thought javascript redirect was the only way! But other sites have been able to do this – examples and details inside

    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 do you 301 redirect URLs with a hashbang (#!) format? We just lost a ton of pagerank because we thought javascript redirect was the only way! But other sites have been able to do this – examples and details inside

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    5
    9
    9850
    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.
    • DA2013
      DA2013 Subscriber last edited by

      Hi Moz,

      Here's more info on our problem, and thanks for reading!

      • We’re trying to Create 301 redirects for 44 pages on site.com.
      • We’re having trouble 301 redirecting these pages, possibly because they are AJAX and have hashbangs in the URLs.
      • These are locations pages. The old locations URLs are in the following format: www.site.com/locations/#!new-york and the new URLs that we want to redirect to are in this format: www.site.com/locations/new-york
      • We have not been able to create these redirects using Yoast WordPress SEO plugin v.1.5.3.2.
      • The CMS is WordPress version 3.9.1
      • The reason we want to 301 redirect these pages is because we have created new pages to replace them, and we want to pass pagerank from the old pages to the new. A 301 redirect is the ideal way to pass pagerank.
      • Examples of pages that are able to 301 redirect hashbang URLs include http://www.sherrilltree.com/Saddles#!Saddles and https://twitter.com/#!RobOusbey.
      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JamesTDG
        JamesTDG last edited by

        The solution I came up with was:

        1. Create a list of all the source URLs you have, and all the destination URLs you want
        2. Create all the destination URL pages
        3. Work out what the Ugly versions of all hashbang (pretty) URLs should be and record them (ref: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/specification)
        4. Implement 301 Redirects for the Ugly URLs
        5. Deploy a Sitemap with Pretty URLs
        6. Submit Your Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools
        7. Wait for Google to re-index all your pages
        8. Check that the new URL(s) show up in Google search results too
        9. Clean up – Remove the pretty URLs from the sitemap

        Job done!

        I created a detailed page on this with examples on my blog at www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/

        Disclaimer - Make your own enquiries and do your own tests.  I'm a pragmatist, I really don't care if this complies to standards.  It worked for me and that's all I cared about.  Google, etc. may process this stuff differently in the future. Do your own tests.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • spencerhjustice
          spencerhjustice @DA2013 last edited by

          I would like to point out that twitter is using javascript redirects not serverside redirects. If you disable javascript and try that url it will load the homepage/ your twitter feed and the url will stay the same.

          The second url doesn't seem to be properly redirecting as at least for me it just 301 redirects back to itself.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • spencerhjustice
            spencerhjustice @Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

            That's not true. Google is able to crawl and index properly setup ajax based pages like the one in question. Bing on the otherhand is not able to do so or at least not last time I checked.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Andy.Drinkwater
              Andy.Drinkwater @DA2013 last edited by

              That will teach me to skim read 😄

              Perhaps trying a different 301 plugin will help? Alternatively, you can pretty much redirect anything from within .htaccess.

              This page on Webmaster World might be worth reading.

              -Andy

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • DA2013
                DA2013 Subscriber last edited by

                Thanks for the responses!

                @Kevin: Our main concern here is getting back that lost page rank, since javascript redirects don't pass page rank. We used http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/ and _SEO Tools for Excel _to check whether the hashbang URL examples were using 301 redirects.

                The correct URLs are

                http://twitter.com/#!RobOusbey
                http://www.sherrilltree.com/Saddles/#!Saddles

                @iNetSEO

                These pages were indexed by Google before somehow, I suspect using escaped_fragment? the hashbang URLs would show up in search results

                Andy.Drinkwater spencerhjustice 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • KevinBudzynski
                  KevinBudzynski last edited by

                  With the JavaScript option, people who bookmarked the page will get redirected.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Andy.Drinkwater
                    Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

                    The hash tag means that the page wont be indexed by Google and therefore, carry no page rank. It is like it is invisible. Just launch the new pages because Google will have never seen the current ones.

                    -Andy

                    spencerhjustice 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • KevinBudzynski
                      KevinBudzynski last edited by

                      I may be wrong, but I don't believe you can do this via a 301 redirect. How did you know the examples used a 301 redirect? The examples provided may have used JavaScript to do it (may not be the best, but can't think of any other option).

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 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

                      • GeezerG

                        How to handle potentially thousands (50k+) of 301 redirects following a major site replacement

                        We are looking for the very best way of handling potentially thousands (50k+) of 301 redirects following
                        a major site replacement and I mean total replacement. Things you should know
                        Existing domain has 17 years history with Google but rankings have suffered over the past year and yes we know why. (and the bitch is we paid a good sized SEO company for that ineffective and destructive work)
                        The URL structure of the new site is completely different and SEO friendly URL's rule. This means that there will be many thousands of historical URL's (mainly dynamic ones) that will attract 404 errors as they will not exist anymore. Most are product profile pages and the God Google has indexed them all. There are also many links to them out there.
                        The new site is fully SEO optimised and is passing all tests so far - however there is a way to go yet. So here are my thoughts on the possible ways of meeting our need,
                        1: Create 301 redirects for each an every page in the .htaccess file that would be one huge .htaccess file 50,000 lines plus - I am worried about effect on site speed.
                        2: Create 301 redirects for each and every unused folder, and wildcard the file names, this would be a single redirect for each file in each folder to a single redirect page
                        so the 404 issue is overcome but the user doesn't open the precise page they are after.
                        3: Write some code to create a hard copy 301 index.php file for each and every folder that is to be replaced.
                        4: Write code to create a hard copy 301 .php file for each and every page that is to be replaced.
                        5: We could just let the pages all die and list them with Google to advise of their death.
                        6: We could have the redirect managed by a database rather than .htaccess or single redirect files. Probably the most challenging thing will be to load the data in the first place, but I assume this could be done programatically - especially if the new URL can be inferred from the old. Many be I am missing another, simpler approach - please discuss

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GeezerG
                        0
                      • brianvest

                        301 redirects Ruby on Rails

                        Can anyone point me to the best way to implement 301 redirects on a Ruby on Rails website?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianvest
                        0
                      • viatrading1

                        Several 301 Redirects to Same Page

                        Hi, I have 3 Pages we won't use anymore in our website. Let's call them url A, url B and url C. To keep their SEO strength on our domain, I've though about redirecting all of them to url D. For what I understand, when 301 redirecting, about 85-90% of the link SEO juice is passed. Then, if I redirect 3 URLs to the same page... does url D receive all the link SEO juices for URLs added up? (approximately)
                        e.g. future url D juice = 100% current url D juice + 85% url A juice + 85% url B juice + 85% url C juice Is this the best practice, or is there a better way? Cheers,

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
                        0
                      • Angelos_Savvaidis

                        Multilingual Site and 301 redirection

                        Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis
                        0
                      • shloy23-294584

                        SEO impact difference between a URL Rewrite and 301 redirect

                        Hi guys and girls! Just putting a new site live, we changed the URL from one thing to another and I created a 301 file redirecting the urls like for like. The developer installing it has created a different file with columns like: RewriteRule ^page/ http://www.site/page [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^/page/ http://www.site/page [R=301,L] What's the difference? The page redirects but is there a difference between the 301 redirect and this URL rewrite in terms of SEO and link value?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shloy23-294584
                        0
                      • Chris_Bishop

                        301 redirect subdirectory to new domain

                        I'm planning on using 301 redirects to spin out a subdirectory of my current website to be its own separate domain. For instance, I currently have a website www.website.com and my writers write tech news at www.website.com/news. Now I want to 301 redirect www.website.com/news to www.technews.com. Will this have any negative impact on SEO? What are some steps that I can take to minimize these impacts?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Bishop
                        1
                      • jasondexter

                        Multiple 301 redirects for a HTTPS URL. Good or bad?

                        I'm working on an ecommerce website that has a few snags and issues with it's coding. They're using https, and when you access the website through domain.com, theres a 301 redirect to http://www.domain.com and then this, in turn, redirected to https://www.domain.com. Would this have a deterimental effect or is that considered the best way to do it. Have the website redirect to http and then all http access is redirected to the https URL? Thanks

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasondexter
                        0
                      • Stew222

                        Too many 301 redirects?

                        Hey, My company currently has one chief website with about 500-600 other domains that all feature the same material as the chief website.  These domains have been around for about 5 years and have actually picked up some link traffic. I have all of these identical web-pages utilizing rel=canonical but I was wondering if I would be better served, from SEO purposes, to 301 redirect all of these sites to their respective pages on our chief website?  If I add 500 301 redirects, will the major search engines consider this to be black-hat link-building even though the sites are related and technically already feature the same content? For an example, the chief website is www.1099pro.com and I would 301 redirect the below sites to the chief site: 1099softwarepro.com 1099softwarepro.info 1099softwarepro.net 1099softwarepro.biz 1099softwareprofessionals.com 1099softwareprofessionals.info ...you get the point

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew222
                        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
                      • Digital Marketers
                      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

                      Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

                      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.