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Google Search Results Pages Query

  • 28-03-2013 04:56PM
    #1
    aphex™
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,337 ✭✭✭


    Hi Folks,

    I've noticed some strange results lately on Google. Basically I might want to find out what somebody I've met before is up to, so I may google them. I might actually look at the results page on Google and see that somebody is WXY in Company Z on linkedin. I might go on to actually view their twitter account, and not click on their linkedin profile at all.

    However I've noticed that when I do this, actually, the person has viewed my own profile on Linkedin.com within a few minutes. Anybody familiar with the site knows you can see who viewed your profile. This person probably though i viewed their profile, and clicked the link to mine.

    The question is how does looking at the 'results' page on Google translate into a Linkedin site view? Is Chrome going ahead and grabbing pages to load them faster when I click the link? Or, is this a feature on google search results pages now?

    I sniffed some traffic there and despite not clicking a Linkedin result on the Google search page my browser has indeed accessed Linkedin.com

    I should say I'm interested in exploring this from a privacy perspective, as I wouldn't want to click every website on a google search results page in general. Yet, my browser seems to be doing this for me.


Comments

  • #2
    the_syco
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,308 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Were you signed into Linkedin at the time?


  • #3
    aphex™
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,337 ✭✭✭aphex™


    the_syco wrote: »
    Were you signed into Linkedin at the time?

    Yes. In the sniffed traffic i see it's accessing a specific profile which I did not click on, though.


  • #4
    aphex™
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,337 ✭✭✭aphex™


    Just did it again there. I'm using Chrome (latest) on a MAC.

    I Googled my friend with the following query, Joe Blogs Linkedin, and it accesses Linkedin.com and his profile automatically when the search results page only is shown.


  • #5
    28064212
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,083 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    Do you have any "go faster" extensions installed? They may be pre-loading links on the page. In fact, I think Chrome itself does that. Go to Settings => Show Advanced Settings => Privacy => Uncheck "Predict network actions to improve page load performance"

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  • #6
    aphex™
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,337 ✭✭✭aphex™


    28064212 wrote: »
    Do you have any "go faster" extensions installed? They may be pre-loading links on the page. In fact, I think Chrome itself does that. Go to Settings => Show Advanced Settings => Privacy => Uncheck "Predict network actions to improve page load performance"

    That worked a treat, thanks. It must be the bit in bold. I don't have any extensions installed.

    I don't know why Google would enable a feature like that by default in Chrome. Pretty blatant breach of privacy.

    I think their search engine has gone down a lot lately. I am used to searching by keywords and you're no longer guaranteed the words you've entered actually appear on the web pages you view. It's been like that for a while but it's getting much worse lately. That affects my ability to find what I'm looking for as far as I'm concerned.


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