Google routes search result links through goto, rank tracking gets more expensive
Rather than sending users straight to the destination, Google has started routing search result links through a google.com/goto passthrough address, and a spokesperson confirmed the change. Per PPC Land's analysis dated August 29, 2026, resolving the links of a single five page ranking costs between 500 and 1,000 requests.
Links in search results now pass through an extra step
Instead of sending users straight to the destination address, Google has started routing links in search results through a passthrough address in the form google.com/goto.
Per Search Engine Roundtable the practice began testing in July 2026. In an update to the report a Google spokesperson confirmed the change is rolling out and pointed to the company's history of deploying technical measures against evolving forms of abuse.
Per the report this looks like a step that makes it harder for third party tools and AI companies to scrape search results.
Derek Perkins of the rank tracking firm Nozzle reported the change had reached nearly full rollout across several residential internet providers.
Between 500 and 1,000 requests for a five page ranking
Per PPC Land's analysis dated August 29, 2026, Google replaces destination addresses in results with a google.com/goto passthrough link carrying an encoded destination. Clicking it issues a temporary redirect to the real address.
The consequence for automated tools is this: because the destination is not written readably inside the link, a tool reading the results page can only learn the address by following the redirect.
Per PPC Land, Google also blocks the lightweight requests that ask only for header information without fetching the page body, forcing tools into a full request for every link.
The same analysis carries the figure Perkins gives: resolving all links for a single five page ranking costs between 500 and 1,000 requests.
Perkins says affected pages were set aside during testing, but that the approach stops being sustainable as coverage approaches total.
The change is reported as first appearing in late June, becoming more widely visible in early August and reaching near full rollout on August 26. Google shares no target, timeline or rate limit.
When the measuring tool gets expensive, the measurement changes
The assessment in this section is ours. This change is invisible to the end user; whoever clicks lands on the same page. The effect sits entirely on the measurement and analysis side.
When rank tracking tools cost more, that cost reaches the client. Either subscription prices rise, or the number of tracked keywords falls, or the data gets less fresh.
The second effect is competitive analysis. As tracking competitor rankings at scale gets expensive, that kind of data becomes the privilege of larger budgets. For small agencies and businesses the information asymmetry grows.
The third is a more basic question: who gets to measure search results. When a platform makes its own results page harder to read, independent data about that platform shrinks with it.
There is a legitimate reason on the other side: unbounded scraping of results is a genuine problem for both infrastructure cost and content use. But to see who the outcome favours you have to look at the effect rather than the reason.
What it means for businesses in Türkiye
The assessment below does not appear in the sources, it is our reading. The sources carry no Türkiye specific information.
Most small and mid sized businesses in Türkiye track their rankings either with free tools or through their agency's subscription. When those tools cost more, the first thing cut is usually tracking frequency.
The practical answer is not tying measurement to a single tool. Search Console is the one primary source giving your site's real impression and click data, and it is unaffected by this change. A rank tracker gives an estimate while Search Console gives what happened.
The second point is expectation management. If the ranking in your tool differs from the average position in Search Console, that is not an error but two different measurement methods. Reporting that ignores the difference produces pointless argument.
The third point is the agency relationship. Tool cost increases reaching the proposal is normal; the right posture is writing plainly for the client which data comes from which tool.
The fourth is your own site's data. In an environment where external constraints like this are growing, having your own analytics set up correctly is worth more than it used to be.
The UNALSOFT take
Web design and search work gets reported in three layers here: your own site data, Search Console data, and third party tool data. That order is not accidental. Third party ranking data is a direction indicator, not the place a decision is made. This change shows exactly why we build it that way: when a platform narrows a door, reporting built on that door loses its reliability overnight. The common mistake we see in the field is presenting the number in a rank tracker to the client as the single truth. We write the source and method of every number in the report, so the decision process survives a change of tool. And one more thing: rankings can fall while traffic rises, and the reverse happens too. Before using those two metrics in the same sentence, you have to decide which one represents the business.
Where do the numbers in your report come from?
Let us build your measurement layers so they do not depend on a single tool.