How long has Google been tracking out going links from its searches? I was searching for the URL for the RSS Link module to include in an email, typed mod_link into Google, and blithely copied the URL of the first result without bothering to click.

To my immense surprise I was given the URL:

<font size="-1">http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/link/&e=747</font>

I punched in a few other terms, and they all contained this prefix. Now I’ve seem plenty of sites that do this over the years, its usually the sign of small insecure website, who is trying to turn a quick buck. I wouldn’t expect something like this from Google. Even if it is motivated by making a better search engine, its a short jump to doing much more invasive profiling then was previously possible.

I wonder if it is time to start warming up the arguments about why Google is becoming dangerously central the web as we know it.

Is this new? Or have I been asleep?

Update: Curiouser and curiouser as Alice said. From Jasmine’s house the results don’t include the re-direct script. I’ve tried to re-create this using Anonymizer thinking that perhaps they are only showing this to a small fraction of people, but so far, I’ve gotten nothing.

update[Mar 28 2003]: Obviously Google didn’t make the switch to tracking every outgoing link, I did recently find the following blurb in an article about Google:

This is where Googlers live, amid semantic, visual, and technical esoterica. Norvig is Google’s director of search quality, charged with continuously improving people’s search results. Google tracks the outcome of a huge sample of the queries that we throw at it. What percentage of users click on the first result that Google delivers? How many users click on something from the first page? Norvig’s team members scour the data, looking for trouble spots. Then they tweak the engine.

Weeeeell. I guess if its only Norvig tracking me (I’ve got to of his books on my shelf, and a friend of a friend of a friend connection), then I won’t worry so much :)