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?

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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: