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We understand the hash is for AJAX searches, but the exclamation mark? Anyone know?

Also, the "action" attribute for their search form points to "/search," but when you conduct a search, the hash exclamation mark appears in the URL. Are they simply redirecting from "/search" to "/#!/search"?

Note: the second part of the q remains unanswered: That is, are they redirecting the user from "/search" to "/#!/search", or do they send the user to "/search" and use JS on the page to rewrite the URL? – Crashalot Jan 26 at 23:51

Thanks!

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2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

It's become the de facto standard that Google has established to ensure consistency and make ajax urls crawlable.

See http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started.html

I believe they are using history.pushState. You can do history.back() in the console and it'll lead you back to the page.

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Actually, I realized the second part of the question remains unanswered. That is, are they redirecting the user from "/search" to "/#!/search", or do they send the user to "/search" and use JS on the page to rewrite the URL? – Crashalot Jan 26 at 23:51
up vote 0 down vote

Yes, it redirects with HTTP 302.

By the way, "!" is used to eliminate the case with an empty hash. "http://url#" will make a browser to slide to the top.

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