Google no longer provides direct URLs in search results

Google Search is rewriting organic result links to redirect through google.com/goto instead of displaying destination URLs directly in HTML, requiring separate requests to resolve each link's actual target. This change is part of Google's effort to combat automated SERP harvesting by AI crawlers and SEO scrapers by making bulk URL extraction significantly more costly and detectable. The new goto format, which uses opaque encoding rather than readable query strings, has become consistent across logged-out and private browsing sessions as of late August 2026.