Google starts rolling out the google.com/goto URL as a passthrough URL to help prevent scraping of its search results by third-party tools and AI companies (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Roundtable)

Google is deploying a new google.com/goto passthrough URL that redirects users to search results while obscuring the original query, aiming to block third-party tools and AI services from scraping its SERPs. The rollout begins immediately and will be used for all future search result links.