Hi,
I'm not sure if this is wholly on topic and it's a bit wild
but here goes.
I've noticed something strange in Safari history pages
when visiting sites from a Google search.
As might be expected a click on one of the links on a Google search page
results in a single entry in Safari's browsing history.
The entry itself, however, is unexpected.
There is no record of our visiting the page we thought we were going to.
Instead the entry records a visit to Google.
Safari's history page (Safari 5.0.3) is divided into two collumns:
the title of the page last visited and the page url.
In the case of our clicking a link in Google
the Page Last Visited column contains the string "(no title)".
In the address column the entry reads:
http //www.google.co.uk/url? followed by a jumble of characters
which includes the url of the page being accessed (minus the http://).
Safari's history makes it look as if we have not visited the page we
wanted but are instead looking at a page generated by Google.
Intrigued I took a look at how this was handled in Firefox.
Two history entries are created for the one link.
The first is exactly as above except that instead of "(no title)"
the title is "url". The second entry is the url and title of the page
being accessed.
Google's Chrome provides us with two entries just like Firefox.
The Firefox and Chrome entries suggest that the link takes us to Google
which throws up a page of its own from which it somehow calls up the
page being linked to.
Why then is Safari history only showing the one page?
It could of course just be a feature
but what if Safari were correctly reporting that the click on the link
resulted in no more than a single visit to a single page, a Google page?
What if when we click the link the request goes to Google which then
reads the page being linked to and redisplays it as its own.
That is, is Google spoofing and somehow manipulating browser history etc
to make it look otherwise?
I'm sure this is all a bit fanciful.
Perhaps someone could clarify?
Thanks
I'm not sure if this is wholly on topic and it's a bit wild
but here goes.
I've noticed something strange in Safari history pages
when visiting sites from a Google search.
As might be expected a click on one of the links on a Google search page
results in a single entry in Safari's browsing history.
The entry itself, however, is unexpected.
There is no record of our visiting the page we thought we were going to.
Instead the entry records a visit to Google.
Safari's history page (Safari 5.0.3) is divided into two collumns:
the title of the page last visited and the page url.
In the case of our clicking a link in Google
the Page Last Visited column contains the string "(no title)".
In the address column the entry reads:
http //www.google.co.uk/url? followed by a jumble of characters
which includes the url of the page being accessed (minus the http://).
Safari's history makes it look as if we have not visited the page we
wanted but are instead looking at a page generated by Google.
Intrigued I took a look at how this was handled in Firefox.
Two history entries are created for the one link.
The first is exactly as above except that instead of "(no title)"
the title is "url". The second entry is the url and title of the page
being accessed.
Google's Chrome provides us with two entries just like Firefox.
The Firefox and Chrome entries suggest that the link takes us to Google
which throws up a page of its own from which it somehow calls up the
page being linked to.
Why then is Safari history only showing the one page?
It could of course just be a feature
but what if Safari were correctly reporting that the click on the link
resulted in no more than a single visit to a single page, a Google page?
What if when we click the link the request goes to Google which then
reads the page being linked to and redisplays it as its own.
That is, is Google spoofing and somehow manipulating browser history etc
to make it look otherwise?
I'm sure this is all a bit fanciful.
Perhaps someone could clarify?
Thanks
