Google’s New Search Referral String

This is probably the most interesting video done by Matt Cutts, recently.

So far, Google’s referral string (passed by browsers to our websites) has been:

http://www.google.com/search?q=shock+marketing

Typically, a few other parameters would be passed besides just the search phrase, such as some user information.

Now, it appears Google is going to do some type of referral “spoofing” or redirection to pass which ranking you were at. For example (the string does not look exactly like this, but it is similar):

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://shockmarketer.com&sa=X&oi=smap&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1

You’ll see something similar to the above being passed.

To quote, Matt Cutts, “definitely take advantage of it for now.” 🙂

I’m curious as to why exactly Google would do this. Maybe to track user interaction with the SERPs a bit more. SEO is definitely changing.

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2 responses to “Google’s New Search Referral String”

Anders blogger i lønsom online markedsføring

May 9, 2009

Mange SEO firmaer påstår, at SEO processen i sig selv kan genere lønsom trafik. Dette er jeg ikke enig i, efter min opfattelse er SEO begrebet langt mere omfattende og kræver ekspertise fra flere områder end blot IT erfaring.

Editor’s Translation (Danish -> English): Many SEO companies claim that the SEO process in itself can generate profitable traffic. This I do not agree with, in my view, the concept of SEO is much more extensive and require expertise from more areas than just IT experience.

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Nicholas

January 27, 2010

Hey. Great info. Just wanted to tell you that your sidebar appears broken in IE6. Please fix it.

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Google’s New Search Referral String

Comments

2 responses to “Google’s New Search Referral String”

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