Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Unless I'm way off, Google is already doing a redirection script on all outbound clicks. The endpoint url shows up in the footer of the browser on hover, but if you right-click and copy the link location, you get something like:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&...



The author says he is seeing referers of just "google.com/" in his logs. If they were redirected wouldn't he be seeing these /url pages instead?


Yep, that's right.

Could this be a subtle move to require people use google Analytics instead of their own log file analysis?


That doesn't affect the referrer though. The referrer is still the link where the click came fromo, which woulld still be e.g. google.com/search?q=whatever

The redirect script has been tehre for as long as I remember. It's probably tied in with Google Analytics.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: