8 ms·

It's an extra redirect. It's an incremental deterioration of user experience, the first of many to come under the vc drum beat. I was positively aware that the

by oneloop 10y ago

It's an extra redirect. It's an incremental deterioration of user experience, the first of many to come under the vc drum beat. I was positively aware that they weren't doing it and noticed about an hour ago that they started doing it. If I noticed this change I'm sure that many other people noticed and many more are being subconsciously annoyed. Thin ice Reddit, thin ice.

soared 10y ago
Unsurprisingly, and just like with their affiliate link set up, they did it poorly. You can track links with a tiny bit of js and no redirect. Although at their scale, I think things are very very different.
zerohp 10y ago
I'm showing my age here but I remember when Google started doing it. It still annoys me because I can't Right Click->Copy Link and get a proper url for the link.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  The way google does it is really sneaky, they show you the url when you hover over it but copy the URL and it is something unusable. Even more annoying when the destination url is a PDF which you now can't copy the link to but only download.
  - narrowrail 10y ago
    FWIW, startpage (like scroogle.org before it) re-enables the behavior that is so familiar to most web-knowledgeable people. Startpage is just a Google proxy. I've been thinking it might be interesting to allow for easy hosting of Google proxies, like a one-click install on digitalocean that could be shared among a group of friends (~100 users at most).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - bruce_one 10y ago
    Interesting: it looks to switch out the value for the href on mouse down...
    - oneloop 10y ago
      Reddit does the same thing.
    - snowwrestler 10y ago
      I don't understand why they do it this way. If they're using javascript to replace the value anyway, why not just leave the value alone, and capture the data they want behind the scenes with javascript? What does running the traffic through a redirect get them that javascript itself cannot?
      - stefs 10y ago
        well, i guess if the click triggers a page reload, the onclick-async event won't fire (or at least complete).
  - derefr 10y ago
    Do they still bother to do this in Chrome, even though Chrome supports the <a> ping attribute that obviates the need for it (and which was presumably added to Chrome exactly for Google Search's own use-case)?
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      I don't know, I don't use Chrome. > even though Chrome supports the <a> ping attribute that obviates the need for it (and which was presumably added to Chrome exactly for Google Search's own use-case)? And that's one reason why I don't use Chrome. There is so much wrong with a company adding features to their browser in order to facilitate special cases for their own website.
      - andybak 10y ago
        > There is so much wrong with a company adding features to their browser in order to facilitate special cases for their own website. Isn't <a> ping good for the end user? Unless you disagree with any ability to track outbound clicks - in which case we can politely agree to disagree.
        vidarh 10y ago
        Even if you disagree with the ability to track outbound clicks, ping would be good as if it becomes the main way of tracking clicks you'd be able to stop tracking by turning it off. When people do tracking by rewriting links server-side, on the other hand, you don't have an easy out. I don't see this as a special case at all - a substantial proportion of link shortener usage, for example, is not for link shortening, but because most of them offer analytics.
  - oneloop 10y ago
    The url that you copy is not unusable, it's a redirect url.
    - IsmaOlvey 10y ago
      But that does make it unusable for anything but directly posting it into the address field of your own browser window. Which means you end up having to open the URL first yourself just to copy and share it. And that doesn't even always work, since URLs triggering downloads don't update the URL in the address field (at least in Firefox).
      - oneloop 10y ago
        Lets try. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwitoPLRkuTNAhWTF8AKHU_7AagQqQIIHzAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fct-dallas-protest-police-shootings-20160707-story.html&usg=AFQjCNHt45n7ib99EKuFs5DtZguIPYbm2w&sig2=PSR7LmEUZmcTIGGNl2BveA https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... I'm sharing it with you. Is this unusable? Did you not get to the news article I was sharing with you by clicking on the link? So what's your point?
        nathancahill 10y ago
        It's unusable. Before I clicked the link I couldn't tell if it was going to take me to chicagotribune.com (it does) or go*tse.cx.
        oneloop 10y ago
        "before you clicked" the link you haven't used it.
        nathancahill 10y ago
        I'd argue that link user experience starts before you actually click a link. Maybe when you're deciding whether or not to click? Same reason that URL shorteners are bad UX. Source (creator of Delicious): http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners
- quesera 10y ago
  If you are not logged in to Google, you get clean links. It's ironic that they treat less engaged users preferably. The redirect links are fairly easy to trim. The real URL is at the end. So in the worst case, just snip it out. I'm sure there are browser extensions that will do it for you.
  - michaelt 10y ago
    The real URL is at the end. So in the worst case, just snip it out. I hope you remember all your character URL-encodings so you can snip out http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.54.3597%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf right.
    - quesera 10y ago
      It's just hexadecimal ASCII. This is within our capabilities.
      - nathancahill 10y ago
        We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
  - LukeShu 10y ago
    > If you are not logged in to Google, you get clean links. It's ironic that they treat less engaged users preferably. No you don't. They start out clean, but when you click or right click on the link, it changes.
    - quesera 10y ago
      It had been a long time since I checked. I don't use Google often. But I just checked again, and you're partially correct. Some but not all links are replaced with the redirect on click or right click. If you browse with JavaScript disabled, some links are prepopulated as redirects, and others are not. Google is a moving target.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  Use DuckDuckGo [0] and you would get the proper URL for the link. https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ https://ddg.gg https://ddg.gg (short URL) [0] the search engine that doesn't track you
  - _nedR 10y ago
    Incorrect. I just tried it right now. duckduckgo has the same redirect behaviour as Google.To test this, middle-click a search result, ie open the link in a new tab. edit: i can't find a way to disable this behaviour in the settings either. edit 2 : Strange. It doesn't seem to be doing it now. I could sworn i have seen it use redirect links on multiple occassions.
- techer 10y ago
  Read this on Reddit. Haven't tried as I'm on mobile: "You can circumvent that by right clicking and holding elsewhere then moving the mouse to the link, releasing and then copying." User: gasdoves

by oneloop 10y ago

soared 10y ago

Unsurprisingly, and just like with their affiliate link set up, they did it poorly. You can track links with a tiny bit of js and no redirect. Although at their scale, I think things are very very different.

zerohp 10y ago

I'm showing my age here but I remember when Google started doing it. It still annoys me because I can't Right Click->Copy Link and get a proper url for the link.

jacquesm 10y ago
The way google does it is really sneaky, they show you the url when you hover over it but copy the URL and it is something unusable. Even more annoying when the destination url is a PDF which you now can't copy the link to but only download.
- narrowrail 10y ago
  FWIW, startpage (like scroogle.org before it) re-enables the behavior that is so familiar to most web-knowledgeable people. Startpage is just a Google proxy. I've been thinking it might be interesting to allow for easy hosting of Google proxies, like a one-click install on digitalocean that could be shared among a group of friends (~100 users at most).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bruce_one 10y ago
  Interesting: it looks to switch out the value for the href on mouse down...
  - oneloop 10y ago
    Reddit does the same thing.
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    I don't understand why they do it this way. If they're using javascript to replace the value anyway, why not just leave the value alone, and capture the data they want behind the scenes with javascript? What does running the traffic through a redirect get them that javascript itself cannot?
    - stefs 10y ago
      well, i guess if the click triggers a page reload, the onclick-async event won't fire (or at least complete).
- derefr 10y ago
  Do they still bother to do this in Chrome, even though Chrome supports the <a> ping attribute that obviates the need for it (and which was presumably added to Chrome exactly for Google Search's own use-case)?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    I don't know, I don't use Chrome. > even though Chrome supports the <a> ping attribute that obviates the need for it (and which was presumably added to Chrome exactly for Google Search's own use-case)? And that's one reason why I don't use Chrome. There is so much wrong with a company adding features to their browser in order to facilitate special cases for their own website.
    - andybak 10y ago
      > There is so much wrong with a company adding features to their browser in order to facilitate special cases for their own website. Isn't <a> ping good for the end user? Unless you disagree with any ability to track outbound clicks - in which case we can politely agree to disagree.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        Even if you disagree with the ability to track outbound clicks, ping would be good as if it becomes the main way of tracking clicks you'd be able to stop tracking by turning it off. When people do tracking by rewriting links server-side, on the other hand, you don't have an easy out. I don't see this as a special case at all - a substantial proportion of link shortener usage, for example, is not for link shortening, but because most of them offer analytics.
- oneloop 10y ago
  The url that you copy is not unusable, it's a redirect url.
  - IsmaOlvey 10y ago
    But that does make it unusable for anything but directly posting it into the address field of your own browser window. Which means you end up having to open the URL first yourself just to copy and share it. And that doesn't even always work, since URLs triggering downloads don't update the URL in the address field (at least in Firefox).
    - oneloop 10y ago
      Lets try. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwitoPLRkuTNAhWTF8AKHU_7AagQqQIIHzAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fct-dallas-protest-police-shootings-20160707-story.html&usg=AFQjCNHt45n7ib99EKuFs5DtZguIPYbm2w&sig2=PSR7LmEUZmcTIGGNl2BveA https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... I'm sharing it with you. Is this unusable? Did you not get to the news article I was sharing with you by clicking on the link? So what's your point?
      - nathancahill 10y ago
        It's unusable. Before I clicked the link I couldn't tell if it was going to take me to chicagotribune.com (it does) or go*tse.cx.
        oneloop 10y ago
        "before you clicked" the link you haven't used it.
        nathancahill 10y ago
        I'd argue that link user experience starts before you actually click a link. Maybe when you're deciding whether or not to click? Same reason that URL shorteners are bad UX. Source (creator of Delicious): http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners
quesera 10y ago
If you are not logged in to Google, you get clean links. It's ironic that they treat less engaged users preferably. The redirect links are fairly easy to trim. The real URL is at the end. So in the worst case, just snip it out. I'm sure there are browser extensions that will do it for you.
- michaelt 10y ago
  The real URL is at the end. So in the worst case, just snip it out. I hope you remember all your character URL-encodings so you can snip out http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.54.3597%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf right.
  - quesera 10y ago
    It's just hexadecimal ASCII. This is within our capabilities.
    - nathancahill 10y ago
      We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
- LukeShu 10y ago
  > If you are not logged in to Google, you get clean links. It's ironic that they treat less engaged users preferably. No you don't. They start out clean, but when you click or right click on the link, it changes.
  - quesera 10y ago
    It had been a long time since I checked. I don't use Google often. But I just checked again, and you're partially correct. Some but not all links are replaced with the redirect on click or right click. If you browse with JavaScript disabled, some links are prepopulated as redirects, and others are not. Google is a moving target.
0xmohit 10y ago
Use DuckDuckGo [0] and you would get the proper URL for the link. https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ https://ddg.gg https://ddg.gg (short URL) [0] the search engine that doesn't track you
- _nedR 10y ago
  Incorrect. I just tried it right now. duckduckgo has the same redirect behaviour as Google.To test this, middle-click a search result, ie open the link in a new tab. edit: i can't find a way to disable this behaviour in the settings either. edit 2 : Strange. It doesn't seem to be doing it now. I could sworn i have seen it use redirect links on multiple occassions.
techer 10y ago
Read this on Reddit. Haven't tried as I'm on mobile: "You can circumvent that by right clicking and holding elsewhere then moving the mouse to the link, releasing and then copying." User: gasdoves