What happened to clean URLs, Google? Jeez.

February 27, 2008 6:51 PM

Is there a script I can use to work around the google-fied URLs that now show up in searches?

Here's the scenario:

1. I'm writing a blog post about Mefi. I can't remember the URL. I go to google, search for metafilter, and there it is!

2. I right click on the link in the google search results and select "copy link location." Until recently, this would give me http://metafilter.com.

Now it gives me this:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metafilter.com%2F etc etc (I truncated to spare you all the ugliness.

I can't paste that mess!

Are there any scripts (greasemonkey, maybe?) to get around this irritating issue?

posted by arielmeadow to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Sure you're clicking on the result, and not the "more results"? That looks exactly like a dynamic link to a google search. Another alternative- just click through to the page, and copy the URL from your address bar.
posted by pedmands at 6:57 PM on February 27, 2008

Best answer: Try installing the CustomizeGoogle firefox extension. It allows you to remove this annoying behavior among other nifty things.
posted by lockle at 7:03 PM on February 27, 2008 [2 favorites]

You're logged in to google using your google account, and it's tracking the sites that you're clicking on. I think this is due to having the "Web History" feature enabled. If you log out, they will definitely go away. If you turn Web History off, it may go away.
posted by swhitt at 7:12 PM on February 27, 2008

Best answer: Depersonalized Google Search for Firefox and IE.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 7:26 PM on February 27, 2008

CustomizeGoogle doesn't handle that, but I think the Google Search Results Sanitizer script might do what you want. I haven't tried it myself yet so all the usual caveats about using someone's uploaded script apply.
posted by JaredSeth at 7:27 PM on February 27, 2008

Oh jeez, after taking a look at beaucoupkevin's link, you could just use a modified URL for a search page.

If you're using the personalized Google pages, change your URL from

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en

to

http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en&pws=0

I also stumbled across this page that does it for you:

depersonalizer
posted by JaredSeth at 7:39 PM on February 27, 2008

swhitt has it. I did that, restarted ff and all is fine again.
(I had thought it was just me and was as a result of installing Configuration Mania some weeks ago)

Still, it's kind of annoying. In principle I didn't mind the history helping to tweak search results, but the loss of the right click URL/copy ability was just insufferable.
posted by peacay at 9:49 PM on February 27, 2008

Sorry, what I meant was - I went and killed the history. (google account ---> edit 'My Services')
posted by peacay at 9:52 PM on February 27, 2008

Until recently, this would give me...

Actually this is not recent. It has been that way for at least a year and possibly more. As someone said, you are likely logged in. This doesn't answer your question, but just wanted to clarify that is all.
posted by magnoliasouth at 10:03 PM on February 27, 2008

Hmm. That's not what I recall magnoliasouth. I've always been logged in and it's only been weeks/couple of months at most with this notable URL copying disturbance (I know, because I do it many times a day every day). But wasn't there a change to the login recently perchance? A consolidation update or the like? It may have resulted from that I suppose. The specifics whizzed past my head at speed however.
posted by peacay at 10:45 PM on February 27, 2008

The Google behavior is a javascript action that fires when you click on the link. If you disable Javascript using the Firefox extension NoScript, you won't see the odd urls.
posted by zippy at 12:24 AM on February 28, 2008

lockle, where is this option in CustomizeGoogle? I don't see an option that seems to describe this behavior.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:57 AM on February 28, 2008

Given google's tendency to do blind A/B tests on layouts, configurations, code rollouts, and so on, its feasible that the feature has both been 'on' for more than a year, and less than a couple of months; based on cookies, or locales, or any other profile slicing they choose to do.
posted by Smoosh Faced Lion at 7:37 AM on March 1, 2008

Given google's tendency to do blind A/B tests on layouts, configurations, code rollouts, and so on, its feasible that the feature has both been 'on' for more than a year, and less than a couple of months; based on cookies, or locales, or any other profile slicing they choose to do.

... I still don't have it.
posted by FlyingMonkey at 9:36 AM on March 5, 2008