Google updates search algorithms; which is bad news for piracy sites

Google has updated their search algorithms, which should be really bad news for sites that engage in piracy.

Going forward, Google will begin taking into account the amount of valid copyright removal notices your site has received, downgrading sites with high numbers.

Reads Google's post: We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results. 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. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. 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 from Spotify.

Since we re-booted our copyright removals over two years ago, we've been given much more data by copyright owners about infringing content online. In fact, we're now receiving and processing more copyright removal notices every day than we did in all of 2009--more than 4.3 million URLs in the last 30 days alone. We will now be using this data as a signal in our search rankings.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 11 Aug 2012 18:16

Semperfipal

WTF, does Google think its only search engine available on the internet?

"Do not underestimate the power of an enemy, no matter how great or small, to rise against you another day." - Atilla

11.8.2012 19:17 #1

Bozobub

Furthermore, it simply won't work. FFS, simply add "DDL" to your search - lol... Or "torrent", whatever, but an additional keyword will make this completely useless. After all, the Google search "{content name} ext:torrent" will still work just fine, by what this article says.

In other words, this will only affect people who don't have the computer knowledge to pirate content in the 1st place ^^' ...

11.8.2012 19:23 #2

DVDBack23

I honestly think this entire move is designed to push 4shared back from search engine results. Seriously.

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11.8.2012 19:54 #3

ZippyDSM

So how bad is http://duckduckgo.com/?

Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.

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12.8.2012 01:20 #4

aeonstom0

that wont stop me. I'm very a efficient hunter...

12.8.2012 03:48 #5

KillerBug

It isn't about stopping piracy. Google has often used their copywrite rules to help other companies get a leg up. Got freeware hosted on a site with free hosting? Well, sites with free hosting have piracy...so now some commercial software will be at the top of the search results instead, in spite of the fact that the freeware is better.

Also, google says only VALID copywrite complaints will be used in this; I already know that is a lie. Google does not have the time to check on their millions of complaints per month, so complaints from large companies just go through without checking. Plus, they will probably start applying bad algorithms to bypass the copywrite complaint stage. Just look at YouTube; videos get taken down because they used some classical public-domain music that was in some movie at some time. The studio doesn't dare make claim, but the bots detect that it sounds similar to the version from the movie, and the video is gone. Other videos get taken down because they have political messages and someone makes a copywrite claim with nothing to back it up, not even a false claim...they just say it infringes on their unnamed copywrite and the video is gone. Thankfully google isn't going to extremes and removing these sites from the results entirely (yet), but moving a search result to page 10 is virtually the same thing. Yes, YOU might be determined enough to find it...but when the average user searches for something, they usually don't go beyond the first page.

12.8.2012 10:13 #6

ZippyDSM

Google has become part of the problem in order to make more money. Like everything else with a bit of power/influance, its one of the powers that be.

Copyright infringement is nothing more than civil disobedience to a bad set of laws. Lets renegotiate them.

---
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12.8.2012 11:07 #7

sternrulez

Originally posted by Bozobub: Furthermore, it simply won't work. FFS, simply add "DDL" to your search - lol... Or "torrent", whatever, but an additional keyword will make this completely useless. After all, the Google search "{content name} ext:torrent" will still work just fine, by what this article says.

In other words, this will only affect people who don't have the computer knowledge to pirate content in the 1st place ^^' ... Bravo, Bozo...well done! If you're not smart enough to know what you're searching for then it's your own fault...lol!

18.8.2012 08:49 #8

sternrulez

Originally posted by KillerBug: It isnt about stopping piracy. Google has often used their copywrite rules to help other companies get a leg up. Got freeware hosted on a site with free hosting? Well, sites with free hosting have piracy...so now some commercial software will be at the top of the search results instead, in spite of the fact that the freeware is better.

Also, google says only VALID copywrite complaints will be used in this; I already know that is a lie. Google does not have the time to check on their millions of complaints per month, so complaints from large companies just go through without checking. Plus, they will probably start applying bad algorithms to bypass the copywrite complaint stage. Just look at YouTube; videos get taken down because they used some classical public-domain music that was in some movie at some time. The studio doesnt dare make claim, but the bots detect that it sounds similar to the version from the movie, and the video is gone. Other videos get taken down because they have political messages and someone makes a copywrite claim with nothing to back it up, not even a false claim...they just say it infringes on their unnamed copywrite and the video is gone. Thankfully google isnt going to extremes and removing these sites from the results entirely (yet), but moving a search result to page 10 is virtually the same thing. Yes, YOU might be determined enough to find it...but when the average user searches for something, they usually dont go beyond the first page. As Bozo stated previously Killer, all it takes to circumvent this is to be more specific in what youre looking for... :)

18.8.2012 08:56 #9

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