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Not happening to me, but this question reminds me of something I've been wondering for a while: when did Google first start redirecting search result links so t
by jzl 8y ago
Not happening to me, but this question reminds me of something I've been wondering for a while: when did Google first start redirecting search result links so they could track what you end up clicking on? Was it like that before 2010? Has it always been that way? I feel like they had direct links throughout most of the 2000's but maybe I'm imagining it.
- gcbw2 8y agoSince forever. And they do it on the onClick event, so you are mislead to believe that the link is clean (as show on your status bar on link mouse over, until the very last second) And they do that on GMail, calendar, and even on mobile apps such as google voice and hangouts. (i.e. if you long press and copy, it is a clean url, if you touch the link, it opens a tracking redirect on the browser --which chrome hides. But you should be using firefox on android as well) Firefox (desktop and mobile) and Chorme (only desktop because google don't want you installing adblockers on their browsers) have an extension called "Skip Redirect" that works-around this problem.
- naikrovek 8y agoI think they just modify the status bar manually on hover. If you right-click a search result URL and copy it to the clipboard, it's the super long redirect URL, even as the browser status bar shows the URL you will be directed to.
- sublupo 8y agoI've wondered for a while how to do that. Is there a JavaScript function that modifies the status bar?
- photonios 8y agoI just tried it and right clicking a search result gives me the direct URL, not the super long redirect URL. That only happens if you click it.
- gcbw2 8y agoIt depends on the browser. some browsers allow JS code to fool the status bar url, others do not. If you are using a browser that prevents status bar fooling, you will be able to copy the original link and middle click to avoid tracking. If your browser allows it, then everything will include tracking.
- jzl 8y ago> an extension called "Skip Redirect" [mouth open emoji] Smacking my head that I never thought to look for such an extension. Thanks!
- computator 8y ago> extension called "Skip Redirect" works-around this problem Thanks for mentioning that. Google is the the one site where I want it to always work, but it seems the extension has a limitation with Google's links. At least with Firefox under Windows 7, if you click on a Google link, it won't skip the redirect. It does skip the redirect if you open the link in a new tab, or if you copy the link location, then paste and go from the address bar. Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe I need to tell the author of the extension.
- steve1977 8y agoI just know that I have browser extension that prevents exactly that ;)
- londons_explore 8y agoTracking outbound links is core to the way Google ranks search results. Think of search as "given this search query, which of the trillions of webpages on the internet will the user end up visiting?". By looking at historic answers to that question from other users, they can present links to web pages which are very likely to answer the query for you too. That is the reason smaller search engines (Bing), and privacy search engines (DDG), will never get as good as Google. Without data to answer the above question, they will never get as good results.
- zhte415 8y agoOff the cuff guess based on chatting about the annoyance to colleagues, and based on the colleagues and team, around 2002-2003.