Redirect urls on Google SERPS

[Brett_Tabke]

All the listings I've checked in the last hour have had click through counters on them.

Counter address example:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.webmasterworld.com/&e=1416

That's not a real warm development. I hope it's temporary. It means constantly editing cut and pasted urls.

Looks like some changes are afoot at the plex. There was also the discovery of colorless AdWords [webmasterworld.com] and the increase in db size [webmasterworld.com].

[Black Knight]

> what is the impact of this click through counting on people who donīt use AdWords or any other kind of PPCs?

Could be many things:
1. Comparison of click-thru results between SERPs and Ads.
2. Could be to beat those who have SERPs set to open in a new window, thus tracking whether users (without the toolbar, such as Opera users) are returning from results unsatisfied to pick another. Where SERPs open in a new window, the search would not be repeated to leave a site and click another result.
3. Could be part of the deal with Yahoo :)

There's lots of possibilities, and too little data as yet.

[cminblues]

Brett, johnser, saurabh:

Are the referrers from these serps right & clear?
[I mean: at least the user's query in G -> visible in logs of server's sites 'pointed' by the serp]

cminblues

[msgraph]

It has happened to me a few times in the past couple months like turk182 mentioned. All the listings had the redirects on them. When I closed the browser and retried, they were still there, but when I dumped the cookie they were gone.

In all cases I used IE.

I could never replicate it either, seems to be a random deal.

I'll add to BlackKnight's list:

You know how they inject new web sites and/or new content in their mid-update shuffles?

Show users the new sites, serve up some redirect codes and monitor how they fare. If they are sitting at #6 and draw more clicks than 1-5, then the site grabs a few bonus points on the next update.

Could this be why some sites with really low PR have been beating out higher sites this past two updates?

[rencke]

Show users the new sites, serve up some redirect codes and monitor how they fare. If they are sitting at #6 and draw more clicks than 1-5, then the site grabs a few bonus points on the next update.

I think that's it. And vice versa. Inktomi had (has?) a scheme like this, where they measure the amount of time between the click on the link and the visitor's return to the SERP, clicking on another link. If the time lapse is short and new clicks frequent, the site receives demerits for the search phrase used. Presumably the opposite is also true.

This is good protection against spammers and helps increase reply relevance, so it seems logical that Google would be experimenting with it.

[gsx]

I've heard of some phrases where they appear every time you search. It is believed that Google sell this information to companies with large budgets for market research.

[msgraph]

>>>>This is good protection against spammers and helps increase reply relevance, so it seems logical that Google would be experimenting with it.

Good protection against people trying to run click-bots too since it is served up to random surfers.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I remember seeing this in an older post, and remembering that G constantly read click throughs on a certain phrase, something like "mobile phones".....a term that is contstantly recording CTR.

While checking I see Brett mentioning it around 2 years ago....with threads in between mentioning it too.

Maybe with the sheer volume of queries they get nowadays they only need to do it once and again. Another perhaps would be that they could do it more often for friendly companies seeking advertising after a G IPO :)

[Allergic]

Nice find Brett. I see it from Canada in IE and Moz. It use also the javascript event OnClick.

[gypsychild]

Just showed up from UK via google.com using IE.

[gypsychild]

What does the number at the end mean? I notice it's the same for all listings, but different for each user, ie, all Brett's are 1416, all mine are 747, etc.

[rfgdxm1]

How come all you guys can get this new, improved Google, and I consistently get the old way? :(

[Helpmebe1]

ok.. as one mentioned.. it measures the time one clicks on a site then returns to the SERP.. how about the people looking for the best price.. they click on your site and off your site in a second looking for the best price.. or the guy who has an ugly site.. (good thing ours is enticing) Shall one then say click here for price and click here to keep them on longer..hmm..just a thought..
Something tells me Google has maxed themselves out and the best has been seen by them.. things can only turn grey now... could I be wrong? Maybe.. just get this gut feeling though

[gypsychild]

rfgdxm1, I wasn't getting it earlier, but suddenly it just started showing up and then I couldn't get rid of it. I decided to clear the Google cookies to see what would happen - I don't know if this was just coincidence, but after that, I couldn't get it again.

[spagmoid]

I don't see why this is a bad thing. Everyone else was doing it, why did they take so long?

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:37 pm (utc) on Nov. 6, 2002]
[edit reason] please stay within the topic of the thread. [/edit]

[oLeon]

I noticed this kind of click-tracking every now and then in the last months (or even year).
I use IE and thought, thatīs just a temporary feature tracking "some" klicks and userbehavior. And I thought, that itīs possible to do it temporarly due to the bulk of users all over the world on Google. Itīs okay to track the clicks for some keywords just for an hour. The mass of clicks are resulting in enough datas about whatever. Itīs not necessary to do it everytime.

[GoogleGuy]

What oLeon said. We normally don't track redirects on urls because it slows users down. That data is useful though, so we sometimes do random sampling to make sure that our quality is still high. If I had to guess, the sampling has already finished for you, Brett.

I'm going to officially change my motto to Don't Panic. ;) Checking on clickthrough a miniscule amount of the time is something that we've done for a long time...

[Brett_Tabke]

Thanks.

[GoogleGuy]

We do our best not to slow users down. But we also do our best to measure our quality. So tracking redirects a small amount of the time seems like a pretty good compromise. Like oLeon says, this is something that we've done for several months or more. Definitely folks should drop an email to Google if you think there's a better way to work it. We like getting good suggestions, and webmasters give really good suggestions most of the time. :)

[cminblues]

Ah, good.
My fear was, from now never having the correct referers in logs. :)

cminblues

[Brett_Tabke]

Ok - that's fine. I'd never seen it site wide on everything like that before.