4 ms·

Actually, this happens for all Google results, not just PDFs.

• jacquesm 11y ago
  With a normal result you can just click on it and then cut-paste the URL to your email. But with a pdf the link will simply start a download without ever showing you the link.
  • gengkev 11y ago
    Hm, I hadn't considered that. I use Chrome, so for downloads I can press Ctrl+J and copy the link from the Downloads page.
• frik 11y ago
  Yes, very annoying. It's a bug. Initially a search result link on Google looked like this: <a href="http://example.com">Example<br>http://example.com</a> Around 2002 they wanted to track which link you clicked: <a onclick="trackpage(this)" href="http://example.com">Example<br>http://example.com</a> The trackpage() functions does a GET request to Google just before the href opens the link. This was in the days before AJAX! If you deactivated JavaScript, the noscript looked like this: <a href="http://google.com?redirect=example.com">Example<br>http://example.com</a> Around 2009 Google introduced a bug, and now every search result looks like the former noscript version - super annoying: <a href="http://google.com?redirect=example.com">Example<br>http://example.com</a>
  • treebeard901 11y ago
    I would wonder if this is more of a feature (for Google) than a bug. If you send a link to a friend that you found by searching Google, it's in Google's business interests for your friend to first come to Google and then the site you were trying to get to. Annoying, even if it's just a redirect, but profitable for Google in many ways.