Google now routes organic Search clicks through a google.com/goto redirect

A dev.to write-up describes the click as three steps:

1. The results page links to a google.com/goto URL that encodes the destination ^[5]. 2. The browser loads that Google-owned address. 3. Google redirects the browser to the page the result pointed at ^[5].

A tool that read hrefs off the results page used to get the destination URL directly ^[7]. Now it gets step one and has to reach step three on its own ^[7]. The reporting does not say which HTTP status the redirect returns or what Referer header the destination receives. Anyone whose pipeline depends on either will have to measure it on their own traffic.

The cost depends on the encoding. If the target can be decoded from the goto URL, a parser change covers it. If the target is opaque, the tool may need further requests to learn where each link goes, according to industry discussion cited in the reporting ^[8]. I'd expect that friction is intended. Google presents the change as a response to abuse and scraping ^[3], and the workflows the reporting names as most affected are rank tracking and scraping ^[8].

The change is aimed at how clicks are routed, and it is not described as a ranking change ^[4]. Even so, a tracker that fails to follow the hop could record a page as missing from a position it still holds.

Analytics is harder to call. With a Google URL in the middle of the path, referrer-based and click-path-dependent measurement can become harder to interpret, the write-up says ^[10]. A move in organic sessions, referral details or landing-page data after late August does not automatically mean rankings or demand changed ^[11]. It may be the hop itself, a vendor's tooling adjustment, or something unrelated ^[11].

In my view the cheap first step is an inventory of every report and tool that assumes a result links straight to your page ^[13]. After that, the comparison that holds up is a window on either side of the late-August rollout ^[2]. Split it into redirected and non-redirected traffic where a tool exposes the split, and check it against first-party data and CRM conversions ^[12]. For rank-tracking and scraping tools, the useful question for the vendor is how they handle the extra redirect step ^[12].

The account rests on one chain of sourcing. The dev.to post relays Search Engine Roundtable's report of Google's confirmation, which put coverage near full in many tested environments by August 26 ^[6]. The post closes with a pitch for the consultancy Scalevise ^[14].