Google appears to be testing google.com/goto passthrough URLs in some search results, routing a click through a Google tracking link before it reaches the destination site rather than linking straight to it. Such redirects could disrupt SEO and analytics tracking, including third-party tools like Ahrefs that read result URLs, and hide the destination link that searchers often check to spot phishing or spam before clicking. SEO analyst Brodie Clark flagged the pattern and Ahrefs has picked it up, but sightings remain limited and it is unclear whether Google is running a small test or slowly rolling the behavior out, with SEO Roundtable unable to reproduce it.
