google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Google search result links now redirect through opaque google.com/goto URLs.
Google is rewriting organic search result links to google.com/goto?url=..., using a custom, non-decodable encoding instead of the old /url?q= format that exposed the destination URL. The real target is only in the Location header of a HEAD request. This shift, observed consistently in logged-out and private browsing as of late August 2026, forces scrapers to make a separate request per link, giving Google a signal to detect bulk harvesting. It's part of Google's broader anti-scraping push alongside removing &num=100 and tightening BotGuard. Autom.dev has updated its pipeline to resolve the new format, returning readable destination URLs in API responses.
What commenters are saying
Commenters are largely critical, seeing this as enshittification and a further erosion of user privacy and link portability. Some note it breaks browser extensions like ClearURLs that rewrote tracking redirects into direct links. Others point out Google already tracks clicks via JavaScript and ping attributes, making the new redirect format seem punitive rather than privacy-focused. The slowdown from the redirect is a common complaint, especially on slow networks. Several users mention switching to Kagi as a result.