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Google no longer provides direct URLs in search results

https://www.autom.dev/blog/google-search-goto-links
42•1e1a•51m ago

Comments

1e1a•51m ago
Direct URLs in Google search results have been replaced with redirect URLs in the form of www.google.com/goto?url=<opaque base64 string>.

The base64 data appears to consist of a very basic protobuf structure, containing a long string of bytes in field 2 which presumably identify the URL.

Sometimes, these redirect URLs take a perceivable amount of time to load, which is very irritating.

JohnFen•29m ago
If I hadn't already ditched Google long ago, this would be more than enough to chase me away.
scottyah•5m ago
Why? I don't really see why this is bad, other than if your company blocks url shorteners/redirects. What are you losing?
nextaccountic•1m ago
I use a Firefox extension to rewrite those Google redirects into plain links, to remove Google tracking of which links I click. The extension is broken now
liquid_thyme•18m ago
I've been using the 'ClearURLs' FF addon for quite a while now, and it gives you the URLs back in the results.

https://docs.clearurls.xyz/

joeblubaugh•11m ago
That wouldn’t work at all with this url format - the url can only be resolved by requesting the goto link.

I recommend reading more than the headline

nullbio•10m ago
The enshittification continues.

Nothing good ever comes from businesses desperately trying to protect their moats rather than making their products better so they don't need to.

stackghost•6m ago
Thank Prabhakar Raghavan for that. After destroying Yahoo’s search product he failed up and did the same at Google.

In reward for making Google Search materially worse in every way except ad revenue, he failed up again and was promoted to a cushy do-nothing role.

Everything wrong with the tech industry, embodied in a single person.

donmcronald•5m ago
I use ChatGPT for almost all my searches now. I’m not joking.
nextaccountic•2m ago
I wish one of those free AIs made a search product already. I don't want my search results to be interspersed with text

I guess that the web chat can have a search skill to remove the prose and give only links, plus maybe an excerpt of each result

entropie•2m ago
Yeah, its way faster.

Its not because chatgpt is so superior. Its just because google search is dogshit.

They work on killing the web as we knew it and I fear its kinda working.

demibabs•5m ago
Can someone explain why this matters? Not being flippant I just don’t understand why this would be important.
Cider9986•4m ago
[delayed]
rootsudo•1m ago
Tracking. Tied to use account, length of stay, how many reclixks, etc for marketing by/ads and surveillance.
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[delayed]

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Google no longer provides direct URLs in search results

https://www.autom.dev/blog/google-search-goto-links
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