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What redirect? And, did you even read the comment that you're replying to? 1. There isn't a redirect from that huge link. 2. The post replying to just explaine
by jxi 14y ago
What redirect? And, did you even read the comment that you're replying to?
1. There isn't a redirect from that huge link.
2. The post replying to just explained a theory that doesn't involve tracking: the URL needs to be that long to be unique enough to specify a page with the exact same search results.
- michaelt 14y agoPerform the following experiment: 1. Visit https://www.google.com/search?q=hackernews https://www.google.com/search?q=hackernews 2. Mouse over first result, note the url news.ycombinator.com shown in your browser's status bar. 3. Right-click the first result and 'copy link location' 4. Check what's on your clipboard. For me it's www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2F&ei=fRb5UNSeD-am0AW88YGQBg&usg=AFQjCNGKJHXhsq1s0-gYR96B--m47G9oRw&bvm=bv.41248874,d.d2k 5. Visit said URL in your browser and note you get redirected to news.ycombinator.com As you can see, you are redirected via a huge link.
- janzer 14y agoYes, but that is not the url type being talked about by patio11 or the original article. For the url type under discussion here: 1. Visit https://www.google.com/ https://www.google.com/ 2. type "hackernews" into the search box and hit enter. 3. look at the long url in your address bar.
- bkraptor 14y agoYou can use this addon: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/121923 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/121923
- daave 14y agoAs janzer said, that's not the URL patio11 is talking about, however this redirect is here for a good reason too. It's needed to preserve the search terms in the referrer header for links that are triggered by JavaScript - which is needed if webmasters want to see which search terms are driving traffic to their sites.
- No1 14y agoI presume it's also handy for tracking click-throughs.