What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

It's been like this for a while. A Twitter friend of mine created a simple bookmarklet that you can click which will remove the extra data and allow you to right-click and copy the URL alone. You can drag the bookmarklet from here to your bookmark bar http://techkp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/copy-pasting-googles-se...

Click the bookmarklet before copying the link to get the actual URL.

Re: What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

#5

Post by q_revert » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 11:06 PM UTC

rosche wrote: post #3

But I really want it to stop. I hate not being able to just "copy link address" off of the results page

using a greasemonkey script like http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/121261 can fix this for you.. obviously using such scripts brings it's own issues, but a nice(ish) solution imo

Re: What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

#6

Post by jakub_g » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 11:12 PM UTC

rosche wrote: post #3

But I really want it to stop. I hate not being able to just "copy link address" off of the results page

This is really insane. The only important params from my point of view are (apart from query) hl (language -- important if you use google.com outside of US to have results in English or any other lang), page number, and safe (for filtering).

The solutions that could be applied on Google side for this:

1. Perhaps they could add some button like on YouTube and other pages to share the search (be it web search, image search etc.). Of course it will clutter the UI but it's already cluttered and non-intuitive, especially given their experiments (AB testing?). Each few weeks I see something moved, changed, colors tweaked. Think what if Microsoft were doing sth like this with Windows or Office... :)

2. Use the History API to decrappify the URL after the load (it's a kind of cheat, but I would like it).

Re: What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

#7

Post by sigzero » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 11:17 PM UTC

adrockdust wrote: post #2

I don't believe this is a new development.

No, but it is a sucky one.

Re: What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

#8

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 11:20 PM UTC

jakub_g wrote: post #6

rosche wrote: post #3

But I really want it to stop. I hate not being able to just "copy link address" off of the results page

This is really insane. The only important params from my point of view are (apart from query) hl (language -- important if you use google.com outside of US to have results in English or any other lang), page number, and safe (for filtering). The solutions that could be applied on Google side for this: 1. Perhaps they could add some button like on YouTube and other pages to share the search (be it web search, image se…

[deleted]

Re: What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

#9

Post by jackhlaw » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 11:36 PM UTC

Sucky side effect - Safari's browsing history just lists a whole bunch of really long google URLs. If I'm looking for something particular I have to try every link in the list.

Edit: See http://bartkowalski.com/2012/02/google-urls-in-safari-browse... for an example.

Re: What is up with the insane long Google results URL now?

#10

Post by felixfurtak » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 11:38 PM UTC

adrockdust wrote: post #2

I don't believe this is a new development.

It's essentially used by Google to see which search result you clicked on from the original query. Twitter does similar thing with t.co. It never used to happen on a non-logged in Google account, but now it does. It's been like that for at least half a year. The Greasemonkey script is a great work-around, especially if you value your privacy. Or alternatively why not try DuckDuckGo?