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Google confirms deploying goto URL redirects to search results links

Search Engine Land· by Barry Schwartz·2026-08-27

— The SEO Cover · Daily Brief · Aug 27, 2026

On "Google confirms deploying goto URL redirects to search results links"

Google's playing whack-a-mole with redirects that add an extra hop between search results and the actual destination, and calling it an abuse measure is generous marketing for what's really a band-aid on a bigger problem: sites that game click attribution, referrer data, and ad networks are still gaming them, just with an extra layer now. This matters because if you're running legitimate redirects for analytics or tracking, you're in the collateral damage zone—Google doesn't distinguish between malicious redirect chains and ones that serve real business needs. The real takeaway is that redirect-based tracking is becoming a liability in Google's eyes, so if you're still relying on it heavily, start planning the migration to server-side analytics and direct measurement before you become the next technical measure they deploy against.

From the source: Google said it deploys technical measures against evolving forms of abuse and this is one of those.

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