Google Finds a New Villain, Websites That Trap Users Better Than Google

Not often I will use these pages for such an OpEd, but Google’s recent declaration of war against a perfectly good browser function is so dripping with hypocrisy, irony, and self-interest that I couldn’t let it sail by without someone, somewhere, pointing and laughing.

As you have heard, Google has a new policy for back button hijacking, and on the surface, it really is fine. Nobody should trap users in a click history maze, shove them onto popup pages, fake pages, or block a normal return to the page they came from. Google says this behavior creates a mismatch between user expectations and the actual result, and starting June 15, 2026, sites doing it can face manual spam actions or automated demotions. It is also an admission that the most popular browser on the internet (Googles Chrome), is inept at giving users this choice and is at the mercy of some weird HTML standard (hmmm – I’ll come back to that)

The timing is chef’s kiss rich and the real world descriptions, are ripe with classic Google “hey webmasters, do as I say, not as I do”. After all, from logs and click tracking we know that the highest rate of “back button” usage on the entire internet, is from a webpage, back to Google. eg: people leave websites via other means (new tabs, new browser, bookmarks, hot links, etc) when that page wasn’t from Google and they most often use the back button to return to Google.

So Google is now wagging its finger at websites for making it hard for users to leave, while Google Search itself has spent years turning the search results page into the largest click trap on the internet. Bravo Google! Truly – the audacity is almost admirable.

…and there is another layer here too: Google links to plenty of pages where the user cannot actually get the thing they clicked for without a subscription, login, app install, cookie acceptance, or some other web raging inducing toll booth!? That is a mismatch between expectation and result if we are using Google’s own language. But because many of those pages come from major publishers, licensed content sources, and partners sitting close to Google’s content machine, the rule book gets thrown out (again with the “do as I say, not as I do” Mommy-Google-Dearest speak). If a small webmaster does it out comes the Google rankings hammer. Big publisher does it, oh gee quality content. It is the same user frustration with a different badge at the door.

You know as well as any one, that search used to be a referral engine. You typed a query, scanned a page of results – clicked a website, and poof you were off the web nirvana. Obviously, Google Search feels less like a road sign and more like a casino with nasty fluorescent carpet. Every click leads to another Google controlled surface: accordions, PAA (People Also Ask) boxes, PAS (People Also Search) spam, YouTube spam, Maps pack spam, Google Flight spam , hotel widget spam, PDF viewers, shopping unit spam, AI summaries slop, local panel spam, and Google ads spam tacked like wet blanket on top, in the middle, and beneath it all. In so many searches, the open web is no longer the destination you will find on Google. It is the thing you accidentally reach after Google has exhausted every internal detour first.

So when Google talks about “user frustration” and “manipulated” browsing, web publishers are allowed to laugh a little. Maybe bitterly as Mommy dearest Google emits yet another “do as I say, not as I do”.

Because what is the modern Google SERP if not a soft form of back-button hijacking? Not through JavaScript history tricks, but through product design. The user is not trapped on a shady affiliate page. Often in a browser Google controls. They are trapped inside Google’s own answer machine. The “back” button works, sure, but Q: Where are you going back to? In Googles own browser? A) That controls the default search destination? Another Google module. Another ad block. Another accordion. Another Maps interface where finding the business website can feel like scratching a lottery ticket with a house key.

Here’s the take away, First, Google could have handled it the way they handle other problems – transparently, in the algo without need for a public lecture. But they didn’t, they chose to scream at the web. While at the same time deindexing the shit out of the web.

Second, they could have fixed it in the actual browser code like many Chromium based browsers. Chrome is the webs #1 browser by a mile. They could easily make it so that nothing would hinder the back button. But Google choose a blog post screed against websites? Hmmmm. makes ya wonder – makes ya wonder eh?

Then comes the ranking irony. For years, site owners were told to worry about engagement, pogo sticking, bounce behavior, short clicks, long clicks, user satisfaction, and all the foggy metrics that orbit EEAT “quality.” The DOJ antitrust record pulled back part of that curtain, showing how systems such as NavBoost rely on click and query data, with court materials describing NavBoost as a ranking system tied to Google click-and-query data.

That is the squeeze. Google keeps more users on Google, starves the open web of clicks, then judges websites by user behavior patterns created inside an increasingly hostile SERP. Publishers are told to make better pages, faster pages, more helpful pages, cleaner pages, less annoying pages. Meanwhile, the search results page itself has become a cluttered engagement sink, built to absorb user intent before a user ever reaches the source. Google’s SERP’s are a catch-n-kill operation on steroids.

Back-button hijacking is bad. No argument there.

But Google should be careful throwing stones from inside a zero-click glass house. This wasn’t about Google doing anything more for users – it was simply about Google helping Google. Shocking I know.

Remember, if your are ever in doubt about something Google says or does, just remember the webmaster mantra: “Google Gets Paid“.

Always.