Google no longer provides direct URLs in search results
Google is transitioning from providing direct URLs in search results to using a redirect system called google.com/goto. When a user clicks on a search result, Google redirects them to the actual page. The destination URL is encoded in a custom format that is not a simple base64 encoding. This change is now visible consistently across searches, even when a user is logged out or browsing in private mode.
Google has used redirect wrappers before, but this is no longer limited to a small portion of search results. The older format, which exposed the destination URL directly in the query string, is still present, but the new format is being rolled out more widely. This shift impacts anyone building a search index from SERP data at scale, as it requires making a request back to Google to learn the destination.
Google's move is part of a broader effort to combat automated SERP harvesting, particularly from AI crawlers and SEO scrapers. By requiring each result to have a separate request to Google, the company aims to slow down and make more noisy the scraping process, while also providing clearer signals when the same client resolves many links in sequence.
Google has updated its API to resolve the google.com/goto links and return the final destination URL in API responses. Developers who use Autom's Google Search endpoints should continue to receive usable destination URLs without making changes to their integration.
Written by urgent.news from Hacker News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
