Google "Feeling Lucky" url causing redirect notice

Question

I've noticed the feeling lucky url (with btnI query parameter) is now resulting in a redirect notice page. What's the deal?

@Drazen Bjelovuk When I go to google.com, enter _Tony Packo's_ and click on I'm Feeling Lucky, I get to where I should: https://www.tonypacko.com/ Please clar your cache and cookies and retry. — K7AAY, Oct 25 '19 at 23:56
This is about constructing the redirect url outside of that context (e.g. a custom search engine string). — Drazen Bjelovuk, Oct 26 '19 at 00:18
No solution but there's a thread about this https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/15794018?hl=en — Sanghyun Lee, Dec 03 '19 at 11:27
@SanghyunLee gave forum link about issue & someone mentioned maybe google broke this on purpose as it subverts their ad's which is their money so I'm guessing they won't fix it. Duckduckgo has similar functionality I guess: `https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!ducky+ham` per this blog post: https://travishorn.com/link-directly-to-googles-i-m-feeling-lucky-feature-65ebe7b552bd — gregg, Jan 02 '20 at 16:09
I think probably people were using google.com redirects to add some credibility to malicious links. — Anyway, this userscript solves it for me: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/390770-workaround-for-google-i-m-feeling-lucky-redirect. Duckduckgo is an other alternative. — Blaise, Feb 26 '21 at 16:49

score 15 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 16 '21 at 13:05

15

Using this search string works for me:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnI=&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1

Where %s is the placeholder for the actual search term. Not sure what the meaning of sourceid and gfns is though.

Taken from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/2y3vvt/im_feeling_lucky_or_auto_redirecting_in_url/cpkbbaw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

answered Jun 16 '21 at 13:05

Martin Hansen

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Any idea where these query parameters might be documented? I don't see them anywhere online and it feels a little too close to magic to be a long-term fix. The Reddit post just pasted an example without context. – bsplosion Jan 19 '23 at 20:15

Drazen Bjelovuk · Answer 2 · 2020-01-30T16:37:12.890

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Looks like they've introduced a csrf-like mechanism in the form of a query parameter (iflsig). I've tried copying the one generated from a traditional "Feeling Lucky" request into my search url:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+{keyword}&btnI&iflsig=AAP1E1EAAAAAXbODt-rzChgYf5wDoUWplGXrcvsZ0qOk

Which does work temporarily, but this token is ephemeral and invalidates after a few minutes, so it's not a real solution.

Not sure if anyone from Google has commented on this, but I'll circle back if I hear of any developments.

Update: My workaround is to just use DuckDuckGo instead.

E.g. for first result from Wikipedia:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%5Csite%3Aen.wikipedia.org+<search_term>

%5C (url-encoded backslash) is the redirect identifier here.

edited Jan 30 '20 at 16:37

answered Oct 25 '19 at 23:46

Drazen Bjelovuk

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on DuckDuckGo, you can use the bang `!ducky` to forward to the first result – Adeerlike Sep 17 '20 at 11:44
I tried using the duckduckgo url, but found it only worked if I unescaped the `%5C` to ``\`` and `3A` to `:` when using it in the search address bar – dx_over_dt Feb 13 '21 at 20:59
DuckDuckGo just works - thanks! :D – user2121 Dec 02 '22 at 14:25

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 30 '21 at 00:52

Use this Userscript: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/390770-workaround-for-google-i-m-feeling-lucky-redirect/code

Workaround for Google I'm Feeling Lucky Redirect

Immediately redirects when google prompts 'redirection notice'. Used to circumvent google pestering you when querying with I'm Feeling Lucky feature.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 05 '20 at 11:49

As a simple solution, press Tab then Enter when you see the redirect notice.

Tab will select the link Google's feeling lucky would normally redirect to
Enter will navigate you to the link you just selected using Tab.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 01 '21 at 09:24

Install the extension Skip Redirect. It's available for Chrome and Firefox.

It will skip the redirect page entirely so this is faster than using userscripts like Google I'm Feeling Lucky Redirect and Workaround for Google I'm Feeling Lucky Redirect.

Note that Skip Redirect is very aggressive in skipping URLs and might cause problem in other websites, so you might want to limit redirection to https://www.google.com/url?q=* only in the settings:

Google "Feeling Lucky" url causing redirect notice

5 Answers5

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