Hover over a Google search result today and look at the bottom of your browser. There is a fair chance the address you see is no longer the website you are about to visit. It is a Google address with a redirect buried inside it. Google has been testing this since July and it now looks close to a full rollout, and it changes something quiet but important about how you measure your own search performance.
SEO and Search
Your clicks are being routed through Google first
Barry Schwartz reported on Tuesday evening that Google has started serving search results through a google.com/goto passthrough address instead of linking straight to the destination page. Derek Perkins of the rank tracking firm Nozzle told him it looks like “nearly a 100% rollout across several residential ip providers” and shared a chart of the climb over four months of testing.
The reason appears to be defensive. Every rank tracking tool, every SEO platform and every AI company that reads Google results has to pull the destination address out of the page. Perkins put it plainly. The goto links cannot be decoded, so tools have to follow each redirect one at a time, and a single results page carries hundreds of them. Google has not commented yet.
Why this matters for your business: You may notice your rank tracking report getting slower, patchier or more expensive over the next few months, and it will not be your agency’s fault. Two things protect you. First, treat Search Console as your primary source of truth for search performance, because it reports on your own property and no scraping is involved. Second, if your reporting relies on a third party tool, ask that supplier now what their plan is. The ones with an answer will be fine. The cheap ones may simply go quiet.
The rankings still have not settled down
New development on a story we covered last week. Google’s August spam update finished rolling out on 21 August, but the movement did not stop with it. Schwartz documented continuing volatility on Wednesday morning, with third party tracking tools and the wider SEO community both picking up swings well after the update was declared complete. His post drew more than twenty comments within hours, which tells you how many people are watching their traffic wobble.
Why this matters for your business: Do not act on a week of data right now. If your traffic is down since the middle of the month, wait until the results steady before you rewrite pages, cut a budget or fire an agency. Take a screenshot of your Search Console performance report today so you have a clean before and after. Then check again in two weeks. Panic decisions made during volatility are how good sites get made worse.
Social
Meta removes an ad placement today
From today, 27 August, Messenger Stories stops existing as an ad placement across every Meta campaign type. It goes as part of the v26.0 update. If Messenger Stories was one of several placements in your ad set, delivery simply redistributes across the rest and you will barely notice. If it was the only placement you selected, your ads stop delivering there and there is nowhere for them to go.
This fits a pattern. Meta keeps pulling placement decisions out of the ad set and pushing you toward account level controls instead.
Why this matters for your business: Open Ads Manager this morning and filter for active campaigns. Any ad set with a narrow manual placement selection needs checking today, not next week, because a campaign that quietly stops spending looks identical to a campaign that is doing badly. While you are in there, accept that hand picking placements is becoming a losing habit. Meta is removing those levers one at a time, and the advertisers who plan for automatic placements now will have less to unlearn later.
Paid and Local
Google switched on direct booking for 500 more partners
Google has expanded booking on Local Services Ads from about 20 Reserve with Google partners to more than 500. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, announced it on Wednesday. Read the detail carefully, because the part that matters is not the number.
Marvin’s own words: if your Google Business Profile already has an active partner booking link, it is now enabled for your Local Services Ads automatically, with no manual linking required. Customers can book straight from your ad on Search and Maps. Those bookings then flow into your lead reporting as paid leads. You can adjust or switch off a partner link under Profile and Budget, then Settings.
Why this matters for your business: Something was turned on in your account without you asking, and it can charge you. That is worth ten minutes today. Log into your Local Services Ads dashboard, go to Profile and Budget then Settings, and see which booking partners are now live. Then watch your cost per lead for the next fortnight. Direct booking is genuinely good if a booking means a job. It is expensive if people book, never show, and you paid for the lead anyway.
Automotive
What automatic booking means for your service department
This one is a read across rather than dealer news, because nothing landed specifically in automotive marketing overnight. The Local Services Ads booking change lands hardest on the part of a dealership that most groups under manage, which is the service department.
Most dealer groups run some form of online service booking, usually through a scheduling tool bolted onto the website or supplied by the DMS. Going from 20 partners to more than 500 means a lot of those tools now qualify as Reserve with Google partners. If that link is already sitting on the Business Profile for a rooftop, service bookings can now come straight off the ad, and each one is counted and charged as a paid lead.
Why this matters for your dealership: Check each rooftop separately, because Business Profiles are managed per location and the settings will not be consistent across the group. Three questions. Which booking partner is linked at each site. Does the calendar behind it show real, honest availability, because a booked slot that cannot be honoured is now a paid lead you also have to apologise for. And can your service manager tell you what a booked service is actually worth, since without that number you cannot judge whether the new lead cost is a bargain or a leak.
What to do this week
- Check your Local Services Ads settings for booking partners that switched on without you.
- Audit Meta ad sets today for any campaign relying only on Messenger Stories.
- Screenshot your Search Console performance report and leave rankings alone for two weeks.
- Ask your rank tracking supplier how they plan to handle Google’s redirect links.
- AI Mode now carries link carousels on fast moving topics, so refresh a properly dated page on something time sensitive in your industry.
Working out which of these actually applies to your business is the hard part. If you want a second pair of eyes on your search, ads or social setup, get in touch with us and we will take a look.
Sources
- Google Search Rolling Out google.com/goto Tracking Parameters, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google Search Ranking Volatility Continues Post Spam Update, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google AI Mode Also Gains Link Carousels For Developing Topics, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google Massively Expands Booking Partners On Local Services Ads, Search Engine Roundtable
- Meta Is Removing Messenger Stories Ads on August 27, Common Thread Collective
- Reserve with Google booking partners directory