On August 26, 2026, Google confirmed to the trade press what many SEOs had been in their Log files had observed. The links in the search results now run through an address following the pattern google.com/goto, behind it lies the actual target URL in encoded form. Anyone who wants to resolve this address can hardly avoid making a separate request to Google per hit, and that is precisely where all the trouble lies. The change does not affect your pages' ranking, but it affects the way you measure that ranking quite a lot.
What is behind the new redirection
Technically speaking, it is a 302 redirect, so a detour marked as temporary between the click and the destination page. The link in the search result points to google.com/goto along with an encoded parameter; Google resolves this address on the server side and then forwards the click to the actual destination. Google blocks pure HEAD requests, which would otherwise be a cheap way to query only the header data of a response; only a full GET request reveals the underlying URL. Every single result must therefore be called up separately before a tool even knows which domain is at that position.
Google itself calls this a Protective measure against changing forms of abuse and points to a long history of technical interventions to protect its own services and users. This primarily refers to providers that Scraping operating on an industrial scale, ranging from commercial SERP interfaces and monitoring services to AI providers that use search results as raw material for their own answers. Initial tests already ran in July 2026, and since the end of August, the industry has reported practically nationwide coverage across various providers and IP ranges Rollout. In the Google SERPs does the displayed address remain under the Snippet still readable for seekers, whereas the redirect appears in the browser's status bar when hovering over the link.
Why your ranking data is slowing down now
Derek Perkins of Nozzle publicly laid out the math and arrives at 500 to 1,000 additional requests to Google for a single ranking across five results pages. The reason lies in the mechanics of the redirect, because every single address needs to be resolved separately, and this applies to organic hits just as much as to ads and the numerous additional elements of a modern results page. That is a significant number as soon as you monitor several thousand keywords daily across different countries, languages, and device types. The tool providers absorb this extra effort with additional infrastructure, but you will notice it primarily in your Update cycles the reports.
How the providers are reacting to this has Sistrix made public: Bonn-based Toolhaus is already resolving the goto addresses and, according to its own statements, is currently scaling up this process. Johannes Beus summarizes the situation in one sentence: „Measurement is becoming more complex and expensive as a result, but it does not prevent it.“ According to his account, updates are temporarily taking longer while data completeness and the comparability of metrics over time are maintained. A pattern that the industry knows from its own experience since the removal of the num=100 parameter in September 2025.
Where your data stays clean
Google states that the numbers in the Google Search Console remain unaffected by the transition because they originate from Google's own logging and do not require external resolution of links. Furthermore, the organic search results themselves continue to show readable destination URLs in many cases, which Hanns Kronenberg documented by Chefkoch based on specific search queries. The redirection has a much stronger impact on Google elements such as comparison boxes or the Local Pack, there the destination address reliably disappears behind the detour. In addition, the implementation varies depending on the browser, device, and search function used, which currently makes general statements about the extent difficult.
Staying reliable for you:
- Impressions, clicks, and average positions in the Search Console
- the AI Performance Report for your visibility in AI answers
- Sessions and conversion values in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
- the server logs of your own domain as an independent cross-check
- the address displayed in the snippet that users continue to see before clicking
How to set up your reporting now
The most important step is an honest set of expectations regarding one's own tools and the people waiting for their numbers. If a run from now on takes twelve hours instead of six, the result remains just as useful in terms of content as before, it just arrives later. When num=100 was eliminated in September 2025, it took Ahrefs around two months until the full tracking of the top 100 was available to all users again, from enterprise customers in early October to the general release in mid-November. Plan for your SEO budgets introduce a comparable transition phase and address it early within the team.
That goes on your list now:
- Check the update interval of the deployed tools and note it in the reporting
- Volatility evaluate over several weeks instead of individual days
- set the Search Console as a reference source for organic visibility
- Spot-check source attribution in Analytics against the server logs
- Inform customers and colleagues in advance about delayed data statuses
- check the data status before each evaluation, as already done in the Data gaps in the fall of 2025
FAQs for google.com/goto
What is google.com/goto?
google.com/goto is a redirection address that Google has been using since August 2026 to route links in its search results. The link in the result contains an encoded destination address, which Google resolves on the server side and then forwards to the actual website. For searchers, the click remains unchanged; for automated evaluations by tools and services, this creates an additional step per hit.
Will my ranking change due to the redirect?
The position of your pages in search results remains unaffected. Google has explicitly described the change as a technical safeguard against abuse, and it has nothing to do with the evaluation of content. What changes is the speed at which external tools capture these positions and deliver them to you.
Are the data in Google Search Console affected?
According to Google, the reports in Search Console remain unchanged because they come directly from Google's own systems and do not require the resolution of external links. Impressions, clicks, positions, and country data continue to be available in the usual format. This makes Search Console remain the most stable reference for organic visibility.
Why are ranking reports taking longer now?
Each hit in the search results requires a separate request to determine the actual target URL. For a ranking across five results pages, this adds up to 500 to 1,000 additional requests. The tool providers are scaling up their infrastructure accordingly, which leads to longer update intervals during the transition period.
What should website operators do now?
Check how current the data in your tools actually is, and record the respective data status in the reporting. Evaluate ranking changes over longer periods and use Search Console as a reference. Furthermore, inform clients and internal contacts early on that reports may be available later in the coming weeks.
