Top result sets cookie even if not visited?

[stuartc1]

Not sure if this is old news, but first time I've seen it happen.

Google search results page attempts to create a cookie for the first organic result. The cookie request comes form the actual site (not google).

To replicate - go to google homepage, search for a well known website. Now a cookie from that well known website will be written even though you have not clicked it yet.

Are google now grabbing meta data in real time for the first result?

What do you guys think of this?

[Receptional Andy]

I believe what you're seeing here is as a result of Mozilla browsers "prefetching" capabilities, discussed back in 2005:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Google are triggering a background request for "high confidence" first ranked sites via

link rel=prefetch

. The idea is to make your "experience" quicker.

[stuartc1]

Thanks Andy, you're right. I'm only 4 years out-of-date on this one :)

Still seems wrong though.