off topic, but the one thing that I hate about google search results is that they are all linked to google.com/url?*. Sometimes my internet will crap out just because of this. Because google's server is too slow to redirect.
They certainly do it for organic results sometimes too. A/B testing or measuring quality of results? Annoying to no end if you want to copy an url directly. I remember looking into it a few years ago and they even went so far as to add js setting the status bar text to the normal url on mouseover.
Even if we redirect users to the search result sites, we don't track by the url, but track by number of hits and number of subscriptions as the performance indicators.
> I guess this is for CPC. But it should not be applied on the organic results.
It's been used on all SERPs for months now, ever since Google became extra privacy conscious. It prevents search queries from leaking to site owners via the referrer HTTP header.
I agree with you and 0x0 below. But is the number of query keywords so critical which cannot be released to the owner? I remember that it was shown to everybody when we type keywords and I think that's helpful information to users and to the site owners.
I know if the number is released, the site owners can cheat: "Create networks of fake sites to provide backlinks on popular keywords". This is really the problem of the current SEO. I have a report discussing about that: http://bit.ly/1fcOp8I
I think it's actually being used for years. That's how they calculate click through rates for organic results. The kind of report you see in Webmaster Tools.
I don't agree that Google should be the one doing this, most browsers have a setting for referer like off/on/same-domain-only and if someone wants privacy they can set it the way they like.
It's also extremely irritating if you're copying a link to the site from Google.
