Google tracking links active again.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=U&s .......

[MikeBeverley]

Google.com did this about a month ago, now Google UK is doing it. All search results use the link:

[google.co.uk...]

Certainly plenty of tracking going on, anyone got any theories what their using it for? I assume they wouldn't be daft enough to use it to affect rankings would they?

[kaled]

This happens randomly/periodicaly - I don't think it's new. I first noticed it last summer. I think I made some comment about the page being bloated (and inefficient) but the subject was the issue of pages being opened in a different window rather than a new window. I was studying the source code to see if it was deliberate or a coding fault. I concluded that it was deliberate.

Kaled.

[MikeBeverley]

I've noticed it on Google.com before but this is the first time I've seen it in Google.co.uk, is it the UK version you are referring to Kaled?

[ThomasB]

I think they're doing it wherever they want to monitor their quality. I've seen it on german results as well in the past. Makes sense for QA imho.

[kaled]

I can't remember whether it was .com or .co.uk however I tend to use .com for my own searches but often use .co.uk when studying behaviour, so I'd say it was 60% chance that it was a .com page. Neverthless, I would expect the behaviour to be identical on all country domains.

Kaled.