Matt Cutts, former Google executive and star amongst the SEO community, posted on Google+ how he is not happy with how Google is linking to the "10 blue links," the core Google search results.
Matt showed how Google is not directly linking from the core search results to the site. Instead, they are adding a bunch of parameters to the URLs for tracking purposes. Matt wrote "I wish the "10 blue links" in Google's search results were direct links instead of links like https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct= j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact= 8&ved=0ahUKEwjJpuvXgejXAhURSt8KHRUJDl8QFgg7MAM &url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.speedtest.net% 2F&usg=AOvVaw0szRo_9l-4_h8tA3oKB8NJ." (note I broke up the URL a bit so it wraps in this blog post)
Instead, Matt wants the link to go direct to www.speedtest.net and not pass through all these parameters and redirects. I suspect this is a concern to Matt for a few reasons (a) speed to get to the URL (yes, humans cannot even see the speed issue) and (b) maybe a security issue with passing referrer information through a URL on the Google end. Maybe even more reasons, but now that Matt works for the Federal government, he sees things a big differently?
This is the second public complaint from Matt Cutts in the past couple weeks. The first was around a bug automatically expanding recent searches - remember, that incident turned my SEO world upside down?
This one I doubt is a bug, it is 100% intentional. This is something Google has been doing on and off throughout the years, more often recently. I wonder if Google will respond to this or not. I suspect if they do, they will go with the line that this makes their search results better, giving them more to track, better personalization and it is all over HTTPS anyway. But let's see what Google does, if anything.
Forum discussion at Google+.
