Google confirms goto redirects that wrap every search-result link
It hides destination URLs behind google.com/goto — breaking SERP scrapers and RAG pipelines, and muddying analytics as Google fights AI harvesting.
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What Google actually shipped
Google confirmed it's routing search-result clicks through google.com/goto?url=[encoded] redirects, now at “nearly 100% rollout across several residential IP providers.” A spokesperson called it a “technical measure” against evolving abuse. The clean destination link you used to parse is now a wrapped, base64-ish blob.
Your SERP pipeline breaks first
Anything parsing destination URLs from Google results — rank trackers, SERP APIs, or a RAG step that Googles-then-fetches — now gets encoded wrappers instead of real links. Ahrefs is reportedly already detecting the pattern, and bot or JS-disabled sessions hit it far more than real users, so scrapers see it before anyone else.
The attribution catch
The extra hop can strip or rewrite the HTTP referrer, so GA4 may log organic clicks as (direct)/none instead of google/organic. Search Console data reportedly stays intact — but check your source/medium splits this week before you trust the numbers.
Why now: the SerpAPI suit
The move lands right after Google sued SerpAPI over scraping, and as AI engines increasingly harvest results pages for answers. Read it as Google gating the open search-results layer that a lot of AI-search and “agent that browses” products quietly depend on.
Elsewhere: GPT-5.6 lands in AWS Kiro
OpenAI put its GPT-5.6 family (Sol, Terra, Luna) into AWS's spec-driven IDE Kiro. On Terminal-Bench 2.1, Terra scored 87.4% and finished tasks at roughly 82% lower cost than the prior setup. Live now at kiro.dev.