What is up with Google search engine results for the last few months?
I can’t be the only person who uses Google like this. If I’m looking for a URL for something I’m referencing in a blog post, or on Boards.ie, or on Twitter, I’ll run a quick Google search (knowing I’ll find the correctl URL within the first couple of results) and then copy the link straight from the search page.
Only for some reason, as of some time last year, these previously nice and clean URLs are now full of Google-garbage. Hashcodes and redirects as though I were clicking on some obnoxious clicktracking advertisment. Surely there’s a less intrusive way to track your traffic, Google? I find myself visiting the website in question and copying the result from the address bar now, which is cutting precious seconds away from my perfectly timed razor sharp Internet humour, occasionally even stealing moments of glory from me.
It irritates me.
It especially irritates me because I don’t actually know how to search for the problem. If one searches for any combination of “google”, “links” and “problem” or similar, all it pulls up is information about malware. It also irritates me because the link is fine on hover, but changes on right-click. Surely that in itself is bad UI practice?
Maybe this is a more common problem with a more common solution than I’m aware of, so any comments are welcome.
2 Comments
Are you logged into a Google Account at the time? If you are, log out and see if you get cleaner links?
Happens when logged out also, there’s a javascript function being called onclick that effectively corrupts the link.
As it doesn’t differentiate between left and right click, the effect is very noticeable if you’re simply copying a URL.