Google is rolling out google.com/goto redirect URLs on SERPs. Here is what changed, why it targets scrapers, and how Autom updated its Google Search API.
You’re right, and this article is spouting nonsense. If you have to request the /goto link in order to get the URL then you’ve already been tracked by Google (or blocked if they think you’re a scraper), and following the Location header is exactly what your browser would do anyway. That’s how HTTP redirects work.
This article is from a company that offers APIs to just proxy Google search results, so they’re exactly the kind of people that Google is trying to block with this change. Reading some other posts on their site (eg. the one that explains how to follow the Location header) there are obvious signs of slop, so this whole article is probably an AI hallucination.
You’re right, and this article is spouting nonsense. If you have to request the
/gotolink in order to get the URL then you’ve already been tracked by Google (or blocked if they think you’re a scraper), and following theLocationheader is exactly what your browser would do anyway. That’s how HTTP redirects work.This article is from a company that offers APIs to just proxy Google search results, so they’re exactly the kind of people that Google is trying to block with this change. Reading some other posts on their site (eg. the one that explains how to follow the Location header) there are obvious signs of slop, so this whole article is probably an AI hallucination.