301 redirect for old Ajax permalinks - apache

Question

My clients old site was running through Wix.
Wix creates AJAX permalinks like this: old-domain.com/#!about/c20r9 instead of this: old-domain.com/about
I have developed a new WordPress site for them via new-domain.com. old-domain.com has been added to new-domain.com as a domain alias.
I would like to re-direct old page urls from old-domain.com to specific pages on new-domain.com. For example: old-domain.com/#!about/c20r9 should re-direct to: new-domain.com/about.
I understand that 301 redirect rules do not work as the server will not recognise hash urls.
How can I re-direct the old URLs for old-domain.com to new-domain.com?

Answer 1

As mentioned in my comment, JavaScript is the way to go as the fragment (#...) is never sent to the server.
In your specific case, you could use the following JS code to redirect your page accordingly.
Automatic mode: Use if the page names have not changed:
// Get the current hash
var currentHash = window.location.hash;
// If there is one, and it is in fact a hashbang, redirect it to the new URI.
// This extracts the 'about' from '#!about/c20r9', for example, and assigns the
// location (/about) once extracted.
if (currentHash.indexOf('#!') == 0){
window.location.assign(currentHash.replace(/^#!([^\/]+)\/.*/, '$1'));
}
Manual mode: Use if your page names differ (when comparing Wix to your migrated site). This method maps the redirects using an object, scans the object, and redirects if a match is found.
// Get the current hash
var currentHash = window.location.hash;
// If there is one, and it is in fact a hashbang, redirect it to the new URI,
// based on the array set out.
if (currentHash.indexOf('#!') == 0) {
// Get the old page name from the hash
var oldPageHash = currentHash.replace(/^#!([^\/]+)\/.*/, '$1');
// Define the redirects (old and new counterparts)
var redirects = {
'foo-page': 'new-foo-page',
'bar-page': 'new-bar-page',
}
// Loop through the redirects and set the location if there is a match
for (var oldPage in redirects) {
if (redirects.hasOwnProperty(oldPage)) {
if (oldPage == oldPageHash) {
window.location.assign(redirects[oldPage]);
}
}
}
}