Google just recently opened up their next-generation infrastructure for their Google Search. Currently being called ‘Caffeine’, Its faster, more accurate and more comprehensive. You can try it out at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

I noticed that the referrer string from Google is different in new version; it appeared to pass the position of the search result in the string so I tested it out in a couple of browsers to research it a bit more and see fully what information is passed in the referrer string.

Using Firefox version 3.5.2, Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702 and Google Chrome Beta version 3.0.195.6 I performed searches for ‘murrion’ and ‘gordon murray’ on the existing Google search at http://www.google.ie and compared the referral string to the new search at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

Searching for “murrion” in Firefox

Using Google.ie (Firefox 3.5.2 ) Searching for “murrion” (Position 3)

http://www.google.ie/search?q=murrion&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Using Google Caffeine (Firefox 3.5.2 ) Searching for “murrion” (Position 3)

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.murrion.ie%2F&ei=w4KBSoqyCoqEMfXEwPwH&rct=j&q=murrion&usg=AFQjCNETdpvRK9baXAConZ5g397IO8c7vA

Searching for “murrion” in Internet Explorer

Using Google.ie (Internet Explorer 8.0.6001) Searching for “murrion” (Position 3)

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=murrion&meta=&aq=f&oq=&rlz=1W1GGLD_en

Using Google Caffeine (Internet Explorer 8.0.6001) Searching for “murrion” (Position 3)

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=en&q=murrion&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2

Searching for “murrion” in Google Chrome Beta

Using Google.ie (Google Chrome 3.0.195.6 ) Searching for “murrion” (position 2)

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=murrion&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Using Google Caffeine (Google Chrome 3.0.195.6) Searching for “murrion” (position 3)

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=en&q=murrion&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

Searching for “gordon murray” in Firefox

Using Google.ie (Firefox 3.5.2) Searching for “gordon murray” (Position 3)

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=gordon+murray&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Using Google Caffeine (Firefox 3.5.2) Searching for “gordon murray” (position 7)

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gordonmurray.com%2F&ei=yoSBSra5NpLkMMyZxPwH&rct=j&q=gordon+murray&usg=AFQjCNFhaAyOWDVyTm76fNTNkIs4GNmnbw

Searching for “gordon murray” in Internet Explorer

Using Google.ie (Internet Explorer 8.0.6001) Searching for “gordon murray” (Position 3)

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=gordon+murray&meta=&rlz=1W1GGLD_en&aq=f&oq=

Using Google Caffeine (Internet Explorer 8.0.6001) Searching for “gordon murray” (Position 7)

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gordon+murray&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Searching for “gordon murray” in Google Chrome Beta

Using Google.ie (Google Chrome 3.0.195.6) Searching for “gordon murray” (position 3)

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=gordon+murray&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Using Google Caffeine (Google Chrome 3.0.195.6) Searching for “gordon murray” (position 7)

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gordon+murray&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

Using Google Caffeine with Mozilla Firefox gave the most information passed in the referral string. There are some new parameters I haven’t seen before.

The parameter q= continues to show the search term but there are a couple of new parameters. “cd=” is the main one I was interested in, it appears to show the position of the search result for that search.

The ‘cd=’ parameter shows ‘3’ when searching for ‘murrion’ and ‘7’ when searching for ‘gordon murray’, both are the current positions for those searches in the search results.

The ‘ei’ parameter changed every time I searched.

The ‘usg’ parameter stayed the same if I did multiple searches for the same phrase. It was also the same if I searched on another computer for the same phrase

The referral string searching for ‘murrion’ in Firefox using Google Caffeine

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

url? (changed from ‘search?’ to ‘url?’)

sa=t (stayed showing ‘t’ all the time)

source=web (new)

ct=res (stayed showing ‘res’ all the time)

cd=3 (appears to be the position of the search result)

url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.murrion.ie%2F (the url I was going to)

ei=w4KBSoqyCoqEMfXEwPwH (Changed every time)

rct=j (stayed showing ‘j’ al l the time)

q=murrion (The search term, same as before)

usg=AFQjCNETdpvRK9baXAConZ5g397IO8c7vA (Stayed the same if I searched for the same term again even on a different computer)

It’ll be good to keep an eye on this to see if the referral string stays this way then Googles updated infrastructure becomes the norm.

If it does, I’ll be able to update my Whats Google Up to wordpress plugin which shows the search terms that a user used to find your blog on Google. I’ll be able to add search result number to it too withut scraping Google.

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