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 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/876390/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.
