Does anyone have a possible explanation?

A space in the URL - so it doesnt work.

[georgeek]

Does anyone have a possible explanation?

A Google search on keyword1 keyword2 produces in the top position a listing that looks normal except that the bottom line is:

www.word1-word2-word3-word4.co.uk/ keyword1-keyword2.shtml - 9k -Cached - Similar pages

There is a space between '..../' and 'keyword1....' so that if you copy and paste the URL into the address box of a browser it wont work.

Any ideas?

[top5jamaica]

i've seen that before .. but if you click it, it works just fine. who to tell what's up .. webtrends does it sometimes with the reports it generates

[jeremy goodrich]

Google more than likely is borrowing a trick NorthernLight used to do a few years ago. :)

By randomly delivering 'broken' urls to the browser, they can effectively 'thwart' position checking software that may have things 'hard coded' that won't look for a url with a space.

At least, that's my guess as to why they do it -> not sure about it though. Could be something else.

[NeedScripts]

I am not sure, but have you tried "_" ?

www.word1-word2-word3-word4.co.uk/_keyword1-keyword2.shtml

Hope this helps.

Need Scripts

[georgeek]

I don't think it is a random broken URL because they are also in position two with a different URL but the same space after the first '/'

I tried replacing it with "_" as suggested but that does not work either.

Also interesting is that the pages you end up at via the clickable links do not have any backlinks whatsoever!

Very strange!?

[Richmond8]

Google is just trying to mess with your head. I don't think it's a really big deal

[jdMorgan]

have you tried this?

[word1-word2-word3-word4.co.uk...]

Thats a hex-encoded space.

Jim

[vincevincevince]

i've seen it, on a site i have, and that site was normal.

i think it's for people spidering google's results.

annoys me greatly though, because i want to avoid putting false referrer google search strings (know what i mean?) into my webaliser reports by clicking myself when checking up on what has been indexed....

[Oaf357]

It's a good tactic or a silly mistake. Either way it doesn't bother me because if someone is searching Google and comes to one of my sites I want to know what they were searching for. In turn, Google wants you to know they're sending people to your sites.

I've seen it quite a few times. Kinda annoys me but I understand why they do it.

[nativenewyorker]

georgeek,

Brett has in the past mentioned a possible explanation for the space in the URL as you are describing. The thought is that it breaks up long URL's, when necessary, to keep the formatting of the page. That way users with low screen resolution will not need to scroll over to the right. It also keeps the Google adwords column visible without scrolling.

Ted

[georgeek]

jdMorgan I tried a hex-encoded space, that doesn't work either.

I have just discovered another instance of this phenomena and I can say that Google is definitely inserting the space and breaking the URL rather than copying the erroneous link from elsewhere.

I can say that because it is one of my clients sites that I built :)

So why does Google make a url unusable? Bretts 'prophylactic cosmetic' suggestion sounds plausible but who knows for sure.

Thanks everyone for your input.

[Radar]

I agree with Ted, it's there to break up long URL's to keep the formatting of the page correct. You'll see a lot of message boards do this to prevent someone from typing in an insanely long URL, forcing people to scroll way to the right to read each message.

It doesn't really make the link unusable, since their links are meant to be clicked on, not copy/pasted! I can understand why you as a site owner would do that to keep the logs clean, but Google is more interested in making things easier/better for people doing searches.

[georgeek]

Radar

...since their links are meant to be clicked on, not copy/pasted!

The URLs at the bottom of each Google entry are not clickable.

[Radar]

The URLs at the bottom of each Google entry are not clickable.

My mistake. I retract that part of my statement, and replace it with the likelyhood that that the written out URL is just there so that you get an idea of where the link will go. This would cut down on sites having "Fuzzy Teddy Bears" in the title, but the listed URL obviously goes to a porn site. Something like that.

[madweb]

So why does Google make a url unusable?

The URI is displayed because its one of the 3 most useful bits of informationn when looking through SERPS. (i.e. Title, Description, URI)

It is useable - because you can read it and use it to decided which results to click through.

Any other uses are not what google have in mind when they display the URI with a listing.