• BBgmoro

        See all notifications

        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.

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Get found
        • 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
        • My Q&A
        • 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. Digital Marketing
        3. Web Design
        4. Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL

        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.

        Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL

        Web Design
        3
        3
        3365
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • limited7
          limited7 last edited by

          Recently took over managing a site for a non-profit which was using the dreaded Wix. Switched over to Wordpress but now Google still has the old URL's with the hashtag.  Can't forward them in .htaccess and don't want to add javascript for fear of slowing down load time.

          I found a solution that seems like it will take hours and hours of work. I found the solution at http://www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/ but it seems like it would take hours with all the URL's.

          I submitted an XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools.

          My question is, how serious could this effect SEO for my site?  Google accepted the new sitemap but still has the old URL's in SERP. How long does this generally take to remove? Will the hashtag URL's penalize the site for duplicate content? If so is there a way to tell Google the homepage without hashtags is the page with original content? Sort of like the rel=canonical tag which I know wont work as the hashtag URL's all redirect to the homepage so they will all have the tag.

          Does Google ignore the hashtag?  Could there even be a benefit to this, possibly the homepage getting more page authority due to the redirects?  How serious is this?  Thanks in advancing.

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

            I'm in the same boat, and even tried the DRIVERS GARAGE solution (which is also posted on quite a few other blog sites).  Unfortunately, that did not work for me.  Neither did the REDIRECTION WP plugin, nor did editing my .htaccess a zillion different ways.  Heck, I even tried creating directories and html files with embedded java.

            Here is the only redirection that DID WORK for me (as indicated it would by Peter):

            JAVASCRIPT

            (1) Create a Javascript file with this code:

            var hashesarr = { "#!old-news/chi3":'/new-page/', 
            "#!another-news/dkc8":'/another-new-page/', 
            "#!something-old/eckje8":'/something-new/' };
            for (var hash in hashesarr) {
            var patt = new RegExp(hash);
            if (window.location.hash.match(patt) !== null) {
            window.location.href = hashesarr[hash]; 
            } 
            }

            (2) Save that file to your theme's child folder (so it doesn't get overwritten in the future by theme or Wordpress updates.
            I saved my file here: \wp-content\themes\aweseometheme-child\

            (3) In your SEO Plugin, or wherever you can edit the home page's HEAD file, add this code:

            (4) Test, make changes, try again and PRESTO!

            As a disclaimer, I have not yet tested to see how this will affect SEO Pagerank or Google redirects.  I'm guessing I will still have to implement the Sitemap with the UGLY url's per the DRIVERS GARAGE.  But all my client really cared about was that the client's who bookmarked specific pages, or had links pointing to deep pages would be redirected properly.

            MY AHA ANSWER WAS FOUND HERE:
            http://www.simosh.com/article/cbgaifec-301-redirect-from-wix-to-wordpress.html
            (Alex Nikitenko is a genious!)

            AND JAVASCRIPT INSTRUCTION HERE:
            https://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Javascript

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

              Tuff situation. Why? Browser didn't sent # and everything behind it to the server.

              So if you trying to get url as http://www.example.com/#!my-super-duper-url
              Browser will sent to the server request for http://www.example.com/ and server will process it. But full url that browser want is also included #! fragment. This mean that you can't make .htaccess redirect, nor some server side redirects for the moment.

              So same hurt also all bot and crawlers (Including Moz Roger!). And there was solution:
              https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/specification?hl=en
              but later this solution was deprecated:
              https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2015/10/deprecating-our-ajax-crawling-scheme.html

              And this make things complicated. For now they still support old solution so will be OK for bots. Probably for some users that comes from bookmarks, emails and/or other traffic sources can have hard times. Because will be redirected to "homepage". So maybe combination of both methods (JS redirector + your actual method) can save the day for humans and bots.

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

              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

              • CalicoKitty2000

                Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?

                I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory).  I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible.  My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure.  I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse.  I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example.  I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages. I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2.  Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time.  (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own). My question here is three parts.  1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content?  I might get antsy and want to do it sooner!  🙂 Thank you in advance!

                Web Design | | CalicoKitty2000
                0
              • SEOguy1

                Problems preventing Wordpress attachment pages from being indexed and from being seen as duplicate content.

                Hi According to a Moz Crawl, it looks like the Wordpress attachment pages from all image uploads are being indexed and seen as duplicate content..or..is it the Yoast sitemap causing it? I see 2 options in SEO Yoast: Redirect attachment URLs to parent post URL. Media...Meta Robots: noindex, follow I set it to (1) initially which didn't resolve the problem.  Then I set it to option (2) so that all images won't be indexed but search engines would still associate those images with their relevant posts and pages. However, I understand what both of these options (1) and (2) mean, but because I chose option 2, will that mean all of the images on the website won't stand a chance of being indexed in search engines and Google Images etc? As far as duplicate content goes, search engines can get confused and there are 2 ways for search engines
                to reach the correct page content destination. But when eg Google makes the wrong choice a portion of traffic drops off (is lost hence errors) which then leaves the searcher frustrated, and this affects the seo and ranking of the site which worsens with time. My goal here is - I would like all of the web images to be indexed by Google, and for all of the image attachment pages to not be indexed at all (Moz shows the image attachment pages as duplicates and the referring site causing this is the sitemap url which Yoast creates) ; that sitemap url has been submitted to the search engines already and I will resubmit once I can resolve the attachment pages issues.. Please can you advise. Thanks.

                Web Design | | SEOguy1
                0
              • ScottImageWorks

                How to bounce back after a new url & new site design?

                About a month ago, my company changed domains (from the long-established www.imageworksstudio.com to the new www.imageworkscreative.com) and also did a complete overhaul of our site.  We tried to do everything necessary to keep Google happy as we went through this change, but we've suffered a drastic loss of both rankings and traffic. I know that can happen as a result of a redesign AND as a result of a new domain, but I'm wondering how long you would expect it to take before we bounced back and also, what can we do in the meantime to improve?

                Web Design | | ScottImageWorks
                0
              • _Thriveworks

                From Google Sites to Wordpress - Anyone Ventured this SEO terrain?

                We have a few sites in Google Sites - and they are ugly! We have a majority (40+) of websites in Wordpress. But we have a few websites just stuck on Google Sites, and since Google won't let you fully edit the HTML, add scripts, or implement any technology since 2000, we want to move. The sad problem - the Google sites are ranking well. We rank well in Manhattan, Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. The problem is - the sites do not give much room for growth - and the bounce rate is high because they are so ugly. Has Anyone moved from Google sites to Wordpress? Should we just stay with Google and bite the ugly bullet? My fear is that these sites will not allow for growth. It is hard to update them and even harder to make them look nice. To get a sample - beware: www.counselingphiladelphia.com Even another reason to leave: The slider is non-semantic and terrible SEO. Google won't allow a slider script with tags and a hrefs, so the only way to implement a slider is through a Google Docs Presentation that keeps sliding. I know - terrible SEO (#donthate) but we needed something. Any advice and thoughts would help! Thanks Mozzers!

                Web Design | | _Thriveworks
                0
              • Will_Craig

                Is it better to redirect a url or set up a landing page for a new site?

                Hi, One of our clients has got a new website but is still getting quite a lot of traffic to her old site which has a page authority of 30 on the home page and has about 20 external backlinks. It's on a different hosting package so a different C block but I was wondering if anyone could advise if it would be better to simply redirect this page to the new site or set up a landing page on this domain simply saying "Site has moved, you can now find us here..." sort of idea. Any advice would be much appreciated Thanks

                Web Design | | Will_Craig
                0
              • JarnoNijzing

                Best Practice issue: Modx vs Wordpress

                Lately I've been working a lot with Modx to create a new site for our own firm as well for other projects. But so far I haven't seen the advantages for SEO purposes other then the fact that with ModX you can manage almost everything yourself including snippets etc without to much effort. Wordpress is a known factor for blogging and since the last 2 years or so for websites. My question is: Which platform is better suited for SEO purposes? Which should I invest my time in? ModX or Wordpress? Hope to hear your thought on the matter

                Web Design | | JarnoNijzing
                0
              • hfranz

                Should I Remove URL extentions for SEO?

                We are having a developer design our website with Magento. I noticed the main pages such as About Us have no file extention in the URL. But the product pages have a .html file extention. I was once told to remove the file extentions. Are there benefits to removing the .html file extension and if so, is there a way we can do this using Magento?

                Web Design | | hfranz
                0
              • ChristineCadena

                Best Wordpress Hosting

                I've had a horrible experience with the security on wordpress hosting with GoDaddy.  Someone recommended Blue Host as my next option.   Does anyone have any experience with BlueHost and what other hosting companies would you recommend for wordpress hosting?

                Web Design | | ChristineCadena
                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
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2026 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.