Robert_Charlton - 9:54 pm on Feb 13, 2012 (gmt 0)

BenFox - Here's the url for a search for [testing] that I just tried on FF, not signed in, also on google.co.uk, with cookies flushed...

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&cp=7&gs_id=16&xhr=t&q=testing&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&source=hp&pbx=1
&oq=testing&aq=0&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb
&fp=aed547ad0aef82b&biw=1207&bih=785

I've noticed in the past year or two that Google had been been intermittently returning extremely long urls, and that they grew longer to include new queries when I refined or changed my search, so that the whole session history appeared to be kept in the url, even when I had search History turned off.

When I change my query now, though, to [testing again], the first query is updated, and some numbers are added, while others remain the same....

http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=testing+again&pbx=1
&oq=testing+again&aq=f&aqi=g2g-v1g-j1&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=1224923l1227126l2l1227918l6l4l0l2l2l0l139l460l1.3l6l0
&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=aed547ad0aef82b&biw=1207&bih=785

I should note that current URLs for google.com appear to be much the same in another browser, where I'm signed in, but with search history turned off. Haven't compared the fine details.