Google Confirms Deploying 'Goto' URL Redirects to Search Results Links

Why it matters

Google is routing search-result clicks through goto-style redirect URLs, explicitly to make scraping by third-party tools, trackers and AI engines harder. This directly threatens the referral and citation tracking that GEO and social-listening tooling depends on. Expect measurement vendors to scramble for workarounds, and treat any AI-citation dashboard numbers with extra caution going forward.

The source