Google Search is rewriting organic result links to use google.com/goto redirects instead of exposing destination URLs directly in HTML, according to Autom.dev. When users click a result, Google redirects them to the actual page, but the url parameter uses custom Google-specific encoding that cannot be decoded offline.
As of late August 2026, this pattern is showing up consistently across searches when users are logged out or browsing in private mode, though it may still be experimental. The new goto format differs from Google’s older google.com/url redirect wrapper, where the target link was readable in the query string. With goto, the result href points to /goto rather than the destination, the url parameter cannot be decoded offline, and the real URL appears only in the Location header returned by requesting that URL.
Google still needs the destination URL to populate search results with domain names, favicons, and attribution, so copies remain on the page separately from the redirect mechanism.
According to Autom.dev, this change is part of Google’s broader effort to prevent automated SERP harvesting, particularly from AI crawlers and SEO scrapers that bulk-extract result URLs to build competing indexes. With plaintext links, scrapers could parse thousands of URLs from HTML without making additional requests. With goto links, each result requires a separate request back to Google to learn the destination. This approach is slower and noisier for scrapers, giving Google clear signals when the same client resolves hundreds of links in sequence.
The change builds on earlier anti-scraping moves, including the removal of the &num=100 parameter and tightening of BotGuard and SearchGuard protections. Together, these steps steadily increase the cost of SERP scraping.
Autom.dev said it first spotted goto links on a small percentage of SERPs but found the pattern much more consistent by late August 2026 for logged-out and private browsing sessions. The company has updated its Google Search pipeline to resolve goto links by reading the Location header without following the redirect, returning the final destination URL in API responses using existing structured fields.
Key facts
- Google is replacing direct URLs with google.com/goto redirect links in search results as of late August 2026
- The new goto format uses custom encoding that cannot be decoded offline, unlike Google’s older google.com/url format where target links were readable
- Each result now requires a separate request back to Google to resolve the destination, slowing down scrapers
- This change is part of Google’s effort to prevent automated SERP harvesting by AI crawlers and SEO scrapers