There are a variety of things which I don't think anybody has noted. First of all, for those without Javascript, the old Google page is used. So, you'll still

There are a variety of things which I don't think anybody has noted. First of all, for those without Javascript, the old Google page is used. So, you'll still see some sampling of keywords coming in... albeit only 2% of what it originally was. So it's not totally ruining things. You'll still get some sample of referring keywords. The benefits to Google are more than anybody is reading into. It is definitely an intentional move to cloak their redirects and keywords. And it definitely increases performance for them. Performance gains: The back/forward buttons do not cause anything to be reloaded. This should save a nice percentage of page loads which were along the lines of "what was my last search?" and going back and forth between pages. If you look at Firebug, the Ajax request is actually going to the proper google search page... google.com/search?q=... Google is taking the entire search page and essentially replacing it without a page refresh. This doesn't really mean anything significant, it's just a neat observation. Strategy: More than anything, in the long run this will improve search results. It's not about locking down the "analytics" arena... as one poster noted, they probably won't be able to show Google search terms either (unless they set a cookie on the Google search page, and read it on GooAnal [yes, GooAnal] pages, which might actually happen). The important thing is: SEO gamers now do not have access to which google keywords work and don't work. Without giving SEO gamers which keywords are working and which aren't, it's going to be a lot tougher to game the system. These SEO firms that manage to get the spammiest crap on the top pages won't have much to work off of other than the raw amount of visitors coming from google. I imagine that Google has secretly rolled out quite a few significant changes in their search algorithm as well, to work in tandem with keeping analytics in the dark. My prediction is, in a few months, you'll be thanking Google for the much better search results. I welcome this change with open arms, because I'd much rather see quality content rise to the top, rather than gamed content targeted at keywords. The trade-off that people running websites won't be able to see referring keywords... well I guess Google might lose .001% of their market share.