SERP providers say Google is throttling goto redirect links in results

A rank report that suddenly shows Google redirect URLs is not a new Google feature. It is a side effect of Google throttling the links on its own results pages. Search Engine Journal reports that DataForSEO, Serper and SerpApi all say the same thing. Matt G. Southern wrote the piece.

What the providers say

Google now routes most result links through a redirect at google.com/goto. These redirects hide the real destination URL. A rank-tracking tool has to follow each redirect to see what page ranked. DataForSEO explains that "the links cannot be decoded". A tool "will have to follow each link to find out where it goes."

The slowdown is per link. DataForSEO shared example wait times with Search Engine Journal. The 7th link on a page may now wait one second. The 15th link may wait 40 seconds. Some single URLs wait up to 120 seconds. Serper reported that about 30 percent of these links did not resolve at first per results page. Serper's systems then adjusted. The redirect itself started in late August 2026. The throttling started around 30 October 2026.

Why a rank report may look wrong

Search Engine Journal notes a specific side effect. Some rank-tracking reports now display the Google redirect URL. They store it in place of the real page URL. A dashboard may read "ranked at position 3 for your brand term". The URL beside it may read google.com/goto and some long string. That is the same page that was ranking yesterday. The tool gave up on the redirect and stored what it got.

A team that acts on that report may misread it. They may call it a sudden URL change, a canonical problem, or a de-indexing event. None of those are happening. The ranking page is the same. The dashboard just lost track of the URL for a day.

What to check this week

Three fast checks catch the false signal before it reaches a client call.

First, open the stored landing page for any term whose URL changed this week. If the URL starts with google.com or is a redirect, treat the row as unreliable for now. DataForSEO and Serper have both posted status updates on this change.

Second, match the ranking URL against what a real Google search opens. Click the result in a browser, note where it lands, and compare that to the tool. A match means the tool has the right page. The display is the problem. A mismatch means Google itself routed the click somewhere unexpected. That is a separate story.

Third, keep last week's rank report and compare it to this week's for the same terms. A pattern of URL changes clustered in one week, with no site changes, is the throttling noise. A single URL change with other signals attached is different. GA4 traffic down, Search Console changes, that combination is a real rank movement to investigate.

Source

• SERP Data Providers Say Google Is Throttling Goto Result Links, Search Engine Journal, Matt G. Southern.