URL in google reference meaning?

q=http://www.... & gibberish

[Newtronic]

Perhaps 1/2 of a percent of the traffic I receive from Google has a URL in the query string instead of the normal search phrase. What does this mean?

There's an example at the end, with the URL changed to protect the innocent :) I added some spaces, so this wouldn't become a real URL.

Perhaps someone clicked on something that was cached?

Newtronic

---

ht tp://www.go ogle.com/url?q=ht tp://w w w .ImadethisUrlUpSoIgnoreIt/something.html&sa=L&ai=AzHlETW21-w7pVcIhcosn5qKBhOf2Bsq1cXQ4o6oIBEAAAAPhOQQABc2bvdGblBAmWA&client=

[Newtronic]

Because I was analyzing my references looking just at google traffic, I missed this earlier. It looks like a cache reference looks like this:

ht tp://216.239.53.100 /search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fw w w.IMadeThisUp.com%2F

Notice the reference IP is owned by google, but doesn't pass a google URL like most google traffic.

So I'm still not sure what the earlier reference is.

Newtronic

[g1smd]

An amazingly high number of net novices cannot tell the difference between the search box where they can put in keywords and search for sites that match, and the address bar of the browser where they should type in a URL.

I see a lot of people who have no idea; they are dumped by their browser at the search page that their ISP has decided they should use, and just type anything into the search box.

It took me 6 weeks to convince one person that they should use the address bar to type in URLs, not the search box. It didn't help that the defult installation of the Internet Exploiter had the address and button bars hidden from view.

They now have Mozilla, and a bigger clue as to what they are doing.

[Newtronic]

Good point. I suppose I need to give that a try to satisfy my curiosity. However, it seems unlikely that the naive user would type in the "http://" stuff

[dmorison]

An amazingly high number of net novices cannot tell the difference between the search box where they can put in keywords and search for sites that match, and the address bar of the browser where they should type in a URL.

I think it is also to do with the fact the search box, not the address bar, has focus - combined with one of 2 other reasons:

1:
You are no good at driving a mouse. This accounts for many moms and pops who have got a computer for the first time. They try and move the cursor to the address bar, but try as they might, they can't.

~or~

2:
You are too good at driving a mouse. Many frequent computer users (esp. geeks) develop muscle memory style control over their mouse, and can use it to position the cursor and click focus almost subconsciously onto any control on the screen without looking, based on your ingrained knowledge of where that control will be.

Occasionally, your muscle memory or some other sporadic factor lets you down. You try and click focus on the address bar, miss, and enter a URL straight into the search box without realising it.

[g1smd]

I also hate those sites where they reapply the focus where they want it to be, every five seconds. You start typing something in the address bar, as you want to leave the site, and half way through the focus is changed and so the rest of what you type ends up somewhere else, without you realising it. You then hit enter and go off somewhere you didn't want to go. Been using computers for 20 years but I still get caught out occasionally by sites that do this.

[vincevincevince]

i dislike how to google toolbar navigates you when you type a url into the box

try typing [google.com...] into the toolbar, hitting enter, and you get the google site.

if you go to [google.com...] and type in [google.com...] you get

Google
Web, Images, Groups, Directory, News, • Advanced Search • Preferences
• Language Tools. Want more from Google? Try these expert search tips. ...
Description: Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation...
Category: Computers > Internet > Searching > Search Engines > Google

Google can show you the following information for this URL:

Show Google's cache of www.google.com
Find web pages that are similar to www.google.com
Find web pages that link to www.google.com
Find web pages that contain the term "www.google.com"

Which I'm sure you will agree is massively more useful, and what you'd expect to get from a search engine query.