Google, Search Results Home Expands Routing
Google replaces links directly to the target URL in search results google.com/goto It started to change via a server-sided redirect. This test noticed in July 2026 was officially verified by Google at the end of August — in a period where the company has spent hard days in the case it turned against SerpApi.
01What is happening?
https://www.orneksite.com/blog/yazi-basligi
https://www.google.com/goto?url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub3JuZWtzaXRlLmNvbS9ibG9nLw...
This behavior was noticed in June-July 2026 for the first time and tested on a limited scale for several weeks. Derek Perkins from Nozzle, Google’s change in many residential IP providers with data shared on X almost 100 percent she showed her live. The most important feature of the change does not appear as plain text in the page source of the target URL; the connection is solved only on the server side.
500–1000
The number of estimated requests required now to solve a ranking of five pages
302
server-sided routing type that goto connection is delivered to the target page
0
The official blog post or Search Central announcement published on Google’s topic
02Timeline
The legal and technical background of the topic is spread several months. Below are important developments in chronological order.
Google led the case with the claim of scraping and resale content against SerpApi.
Alex Greenland reported to the public for the first time again written links in google.com/goto format.
Brodie Clark pattern documented organic and advertising results; Search Engine Roundtable The test announced the first time.
The Federal court rejected all of the DMCA claims that Google opened against SerpApi.
Google reclaimed his case in a modified way; Shopping and Maps reduced their claims.
SerpApi was applied to the court to complete the case — just two days before goto verification.
Google, commonly activated of goto redirect officially confirmed.
03What does Google say?
Request verification for Google topic Search Engine Land responded, but the description remained extremely short and generally:
We have a long history of taking technical measures against emerging forms of abuse and regularly take steps to protect our services and users.
Google WordApart from this statement, a official blog post about Google topic, Search Central announcement or help page was not published. In the description, scraping, ranking tracking tools, artificial intelligence engines, SerpApi or a certain date name does not pass; only a general "protection against use" frame is drawn. For this reason, questions such as if the redirect (referrer) information will reach the target site, or the Search Console data will not be affected, are not responded to this moment.
04Connection with SerpApi case
The timing of change is covered with the legal struggle against Google’s SerpApi. Google, December 2025, SerpApi Overcoming security protections, Google Search had a case to dig, collect and resell the results. However, in July 2026, a federal court refused all of Google’s claims by ruleing that it would not be counted in the scope of the DMCA that exceeds anti-scraping controls to achieve copyright-free search results.
Google has been renamed the case in August, but he reduced his theories on Shopping and Maps, and the case now largely standing on a single claim based on the alleged material that belongs to Reddit and two anonymous midges. SerpApi was in August 24, only two days before goto verification, he resorted to the court to completely refuse the case; hearing was planned to September 29, 2026.
05Technical effects and financial Tags
goto connections are not solved directly because it hash; it is necessary to follow each link individually to achieve the target URL of a vehicle. Although this can be managed in small-scale tests, scaling is a serious load because there are hundreds of connections on a single search result page.
This follows the same image with a similar change that Google did before: September 2025 num=100 With the removal of the parameter, the collection of 100 results in one request of a vehicle was no longer possible, and the cost of the same work increased approximately 10 times.
| Change | What did | Measured effect |
|---|---|---|
| num=100 removal (September 2025) |
Limited the number of results that can be collected in one request | 319% of the site 77%,6 queries, 87%,7% of the impression loss |
| goto redirect (August 2026) |
hides the target URL that can read from the collected page | Estimated for five pages ranking 500–1000 requests |
Although the mechanism is different (the amount of data that can be collected per request is limited to the information that may be read from other collected data) in the same direction: the cost of data collection increases, and this cost often meets the depth of the monitored data.
06Who affects?
Rank tracking tools
The tools that regularly scan results pages have to no longer solve each link separately, which can lead to data delay and missing results.
SEO and competitive analysis Home
Tools based on third-party data providers such as SerpApi can spend more resources to collect data in the same depth.
Artificial intelligence companies Home
AI engines and visibility tools that make digging to feed search results are also affected by this additional load.
Site owners Home
There is no technical change to do on your site; but it is possible to show unconsistent data on the next weeks of the reporting tools you use.
07Conclusion
goto redirect is one of the most concrete technical steps that Google jumps to push automatic access to search results. Change can be read as the effort to recover the ground lost in the court in the SerpApi case of the company; but Google does not officially frame this and its description does not go beyond the expression of a general "protection against use." The most concrete effect in the short run will be fluctuations that can be seen in ranking tracking and SERP tracking data; how the industry will adapt to this change will be cleared in the next weeks.
08Frequently Asked Questions
What does goto redirect mean for my site?
There is no technical change on your site. The effect can be felt in the process of data collection of your SERP monitoring tools.
Does this change affect my Search Console data?
It is not known for the moment. Google hasn’t made an official statement on it and independent resources are not yet tested and verified.
Does goto change a result of SerpApi case?
Timing overlaps and the context of the case makes it a reasonable comment, but Google did not officially validate this link. Two of them are evaluated as parallel developments, not a proven single reason-end chain.
How to adapt third-party tools to it?
As with similar changes in the past (e.g. num=100 removal) is expected to adapt the industry over time, but in this process it is possible to see the increase in data cost and delay.
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