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Google is rolling out a new URL format in search results, google.com/goto, that redirects users to a website instead of linking to it directly. Google has confirmed the rollout is happening. It has not explained, in any detail, why.
Key Points
- Google Search is rolling out a google.com/goto passthrough URL in search results, replacing direct links to websites with a server-side redirect, after testing the feature since July 2026.
- A Google spokesperson confirmed the rollout but offered only a general statement about deploying "technical measures against evolving forms of abuse," without specifying the goto parameter's purpose or scope.
- Industry observers see this as likely targeting scraping tools, particularly SerpApi, which Google is currently suing, along with AI companies and other third parties that pull data from search results.
- One SEO tool provider reported near-100% rollout across several residential IP providers, based on data tracked over roughly four months of testing.
- The goto links reportedly cannot be decoded directly, meaning tools that scrape search results would need to follow each redirect individually, which could meaningfully slow large-scale scraping operations.
What the goto URL Changes for Searchers
Search Engine Roundtable first flagged Google testing this passthrough URL in July 2026, and reporting now indicates it's expanding toward a near-full rollout, according to Search Engine Roundtable's coverage. Where Google search results have historically linked straight to a page's actual URL, the new format routes clicks through a google.com/goto parameter that then redirects to the destination. For an ordinary searcher, the visible experience barely changes, you click a result, you land on the page. What changes is what happens in between, and who can see or replicate that process.
Why Observers Think This Targets Scraping, Not Searchers
Derek Perkins of Nozzle, an SEO tracking tool, told Search Engine Roundtable that Google has pushed the change to "nearly a 100% rollout across several residential IP providers," and described it as part of a broader anti-bot effort to eliminate client-side links in favor of server-side redirects. His stated reasoning is that the goto links can't be decoded directly, so any tool trying to extract the real destination URL at scale would have to follow each redirect one at a time, across a results page that can contain hundreds of links. That's a meaningfully different cost structure for anyone trying to scrape search results in bulk, compared to simply reading URLs off the page.
The timing lines up with an active legal fight: Google is suing SerpApi, a company that scrapes and resells search result data, and has reportedly been struggling to prevail in that case. A change that makes scraping technically harder, independent of how the lawsuit resolves, would fit a pattern of Google pursuing both legal and technical routes against the same problem.
What Google Has and Hasn't Confirmed
Google's confirmed statement to Search Engine Roundtable was notably general: "We have a long history of deploying technical measures against evolving forms of abuse, and we regularly take steps to protect our services and users." That confirms the change is intentional and real. It does not confirm the specific target, the intended scope, or whether AI companies pulling search data for training or retrieval are a specific focus versus a side effect of a broader anti-abuse measure. Everything beyond "this is happening on purpose" is currently inference from outside observers, not something Google has stated directly.
Why the Uncertainty Here Is the Story
It's worth being honest about what isn't known yet. Whether this meaningfully disrupts SerpApi's business, whether AI companies that rely on search data adapt within weeks, whether Google expands or narrows the mechanism, and whether ordinary SEO tracking tools that businesses depend on for legitimate reporting get caught in the same friction, none of that is settled. The SEO and AI tooling ecosystem has adapted to Google's technical changes before, and there's no strong reason to assume this time is categorically different, but there's also no confirmation yet either way. Anyone relying on search-result data for competitive tracking, rank monitoring, or AI training pipelines should treat this as a change worth watching closely rather than one with a clear resolution yet.