Google to sink pirate websites in search results

[Maxxx]

Google on Friday said it is tweaking its search formula to give higher priority to legal content and sink rankings for websites hit with piracy complaints.

"Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site," Google senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal said in a blog post.

"This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily - whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed on Spotify."

More than 200 "signals" are factored into Google's secret search algorithm for determining what gets priority on results pages.

Since Google revamped its copyright removal process two years ago it has been able to gather much more data about pirated content popping up online, according to Singhal.

Google said that it receives more copyright removal notices daily - some 4.3 million in the past 30 days - than it did in all of 2009.

"Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results," Singhal said.

Google provides "counter-notice" tools for website operators to challenge piracy accusations.

Motion Picture Association of America senior executive vice president Michael O'Leary said the film industry group was optimistic that change would help steer people away from "rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites, and other enterprises that steal the hard work of creators across the globe."

"We will be watching this development closely - the devil is always in the details - and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves," O'Leary said.

 

[DJboutit]

I would say the main sites warez that will be hit will be the ones than have under 150k alexa rank

 

[Thrill]

^Wrong.. very wrong :S

 

[Tango]

I just checked and im getting 7K uv/day from google organic, but it doesnt matter to much if that drops :D

 

[souza]

New business opportunity.

You run a warez site and you hate that the other guys operating similar sites (ie, your competitors) are getting much more visitors than you do? No worries, for a small fees, we will flood google with dmca of your competitors and make them sink in SERP ranking!

 

[cvrle77]

And then, your site will show up first, and you'll get flooded with DMCA, as well, and bye bye to your site as well..

 

[Mr Happy]

This is going to affect LOADS of WEBSITES sites, not just warez sites. You can easily see which websites get copyright notifications on Google. I talked about it in this thread http://www.wjunction.com/15-legal-issues/145502-track-takedown-requests-google-any-site.html

Basically it's pretty much every warez site. What will be interesting to see how much and how the penalty is weighted. Some sites only have 1-2 copyright notices while others like Gavo's above have over 33 thousand. Are the sites who only recieve 1-2 notices punished as much as heavy copyright culprits.

The reason I wonder is WJunction has got one in the past
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/wjunction.com/

But then so has Twitter and Facebook who have hundreds each.
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/twitter.com/
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/facebook.com/

It will have to be something like a % of all your pages so for twitter, Facebook and WJ it would be less than 0.01% of all pages have copyright notices while a regular warez site could be up over 1% of it's pages. I wonder does this mean if you have a warez site with thousands of threads but only a few copyright notices your unlikely to be affected?

 

[Smith]

Think about it. If you have big and quality (warez) community, once someone search for it and get on your website, he will most likely remember the name/bookmark it. Those sites have big amount of direct traffic mostly.

But, it's going to be bad for newcomers as far I can tell.

 

[PlusOne]

 

[souza]

This won't affect those ultra biggies as they have legions of loyal followers. Anyone running a sizable site would tell you that they get more direct visits than referral from other sites (search engine included).

---------- Post added at 04:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:08 AM ----------

And then, your site will show up first, and you'll get flooded with DMCA, as well, and bye bye to your site as well..

As usual players who order hits will take the hit while those carry out the hit will be profitable.

Most miners who went gold hunting in the wild west got nothing but the one selling the tools and accessories make loads of money. Ask Levi's Strauss Co.

 

[LEVAC109]

I like this! Congratulations Google!

 

[JoomlaZ]

I dont give a fck. I have direct visitors much and only low low from SEs :D