TL;DR
Google has changed its search result links to a redirect format that obscures destination URLs, impacting how automated systems can scrape search results. This shift aims to combat automated scraping and enhance control over search data.
✦ Why It Matters
Update your scraping tools to handle Google's new redirect format to maintain access to search result URLs.
Key Takeaways
How It Works
Google's new redirect format obscures the destination URL by using a custom encoding in the query string. When a user clicks a search result, they are redirected through a Google-controlled link, which requires a separate request to obtain the actual URL from the Location header.
This method complicates the scraping process, as scrapers must now make additional requests to Google to resolve each link.
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