On the Google and Yahoo search pages, the URLs of the 10 search result links actually point to google.com or yahoo.com. The URLs have extra arguments that allow google.com or yahoo.com to redirect to the actual search result when the link is clicked. When the user mouses over the link, the search result URL (and not the google.com or yahoo.com URL) is displayed in the browser's status bar.
I'm wondering how they do that.
Many years ago, this would have been accomplished by having some javascript that sets window.status, but that doesn't seem to work anymore, as is explained by Reliable cross browser way of setting Status bar text
I have a link that looks like this:
<a href="http://somedomain.com/ReallyLongURLThatShouldNotBeSeenInTheStatusBar" onmouseover="window.status='http://niceShourtUrl.com/'" onmouseout="window.status=''">Click Me</a>
This link tried to use the window.status strategy, but it doesn't work. How do I fix this link so that it acts like the links on Google's and Yahoo's search result pages? In this example, I want "http://niceShourtUrl.com/" to be displayed in the status bar when the user mouses over the link.
It's hard to read the source, but you will see that in fact the URLs (in the <a> tags) are the correct destination URLs, which is why the browser's status bar shows the correct URL (instead of the tracking link that it redirects you through when you actually click). There is then some onclick JavaScript that can then intercept the clicks before the browser's default action (following the link) can take place.