http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=

was wondering why so many referrers were coming from this URL



interesting to have a Google redirect appear on Googles SERPs and redirect hits to your site

Hmm what exactly do you mean? I get "Forbiden" when i click that url

just add ANY URL to the end of the parameter - and watch closely what happens

this was showing up a number of times in referrer logs

http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://search-engines-web.com/

I think google occasionally adds these redirect links to track hits instead of straight html links to the serps. Sort of like a QA deal for highly searched on keywords.

Did you notice the Google search results? :S

Instead of direct urls, all target urls are passed to their redirect script

This is very interesting Kailash I didnt know that they targeted like that

Yep, they introduced that system recently, just a few months old i think..

Like recipher said, Google occasionally runs results pages for specific queries that go through a redirect instead of directly to the targeted page. It comes and goes for various queries, apparently when they're tracking something specifically.

Been happening for a couple of years at least.

Remember a Search Engine Called

DirectHit.com

http://forums.seochat.com/t17314/s.html

Here is a Topic started almost two years ago

DirectHit used something they termed Click Popularity

the theory being a click is a VOTE just like in Link Popularity - a Link was a vote

They also concluded that the further down the SERPs a page was, the more value a Click was (as compared to the #1 oR #2 result)

The theory - of course - was biased against new sites -

but it does seem likely that as an EXPERIMENT - Google not only considers clicks - but how long they STAY - as well as the SERPs positions in their newest Algos :confused:

Originally posted by 5urlcom
but it does seem likely that as an EXPERIMENT - Google not only considers clicks - but how long they STAY - as well as the SERPs positions in their newest Algos :confused: While I get as much enjoyment as anyone from unfounded Google rumors, that seems "likely"... why?

Again, they've been using tracking urls occasionally for several years. In fact, soon after that two-year old reference above was made, Google actually started tracking clicks even when it's not easily visible that they're doing it. Look at the source of a results page, and you'll see that they're tracking through a javascript function.

But all evidence (including public statements) is that Google uses click tracking only as part of their quality assurance program. In fact if you read Google's publicly available technical documents, they make good arguments against using click rates in determining rankings.

Perhaps click tracking is used in their Personalization ALGOs

The technology has potential ALGO-relevance - but it has to be
tweaked

DirectHit just could not make it work as well as Link Popularity Worked for Google

It will be interesting to see how RankNet/ Neural Network works for MSN

Subject Specific Popularity has not been the Google-killer it promised to be for Teoma/Ask

Perhaps the answer is to take the BEST from Everything,
Integrate and Tweak, Tweak, Tweak...