Nov 10, 2014 at 12:54 PM
In case you guys are wondering why your favourite torrent sites don't show up on Google these days, if you didn't know, check it out now.
Google Will Punish "Pirate" Sites Harder in Search Results | TorrentFreak
That's right, now sites like TPB and Yify-torrents don't show up in Google search. However this also has its consequences:
Unknown Sites Dominate Google 'Pirate' Search Results | TorrentFreak
Looks like this is a good time to move to Bing:
Google Will Punish "Pirate" Sites Harder in Search Results | TorrentFreak
Google announced today that it will roll out a new search update to "visibly" lower the search rankings of the most notorious pirate sites. The announcement is part of Google's improved anti-piracy efforts which are detailed in a new report.
Over the past few years the entertainment industries have repeatedly asked Google to step up its game when it comes to anti-piracy efforts.
These remarks haven’t fallen on deaf ears and Google has slowly implemented various new anti-piracy measures in response.
Today Google released an updated version of its “How Google Fights Piracy” report. The company provides an overview of all the efforts it makes to combat piracy, but also stresses that copyright holders themselves have a responsibility to make content available.
One of the most prominent changes is a renewed effort to make “pirate” sites less visible in search results. Google has had a downranking system in place since 2012, but this lacked effectiveness according to the RIAA, MPAA and other copyright industry groups.
The improved version, which will roll out next week, aims to address this critique.
“We’ve now refined the signal in ways we expect to visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites. This update will roll out globally starting next week,” says Katherine Oyama, Google’s Copyright Policy Counsel.
The report notes that the new downranking system will still be based on the number of valid DMCA requests a site receives, among other factors. The pages of flagged sites remain indexed, but are less likely to be the top results.
“Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in search results. This ranking change helps users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily,” the report reads.
Looking at the list of sites for which Google received the most DMCA takedown request, we see that 4shared, Filestube and Dilandau can expect to lose some search engine traffic.
The report further highlights several other tweaks and improvements to Google’s anti-piracy efforts. For example, in addition to banning piracy related AutoComplete words, Google now also downranks suggestions that return results with many “pirate” sites.
Finally, the report also confirms our previous reporting which showed that Google uses ads to promote legal movie services when people search for piracy related keywords such as torrent, DVDrip and Putlocker. This initiative aims to increase the visibility of legitimate sites.
That's right, now sites like TPB and Yify-torrents don't show up in Google search. However this also has its consequences:
Unknown Sites Dominate Google 'Pirate' Search Results | TorrentFreak
Google's downranking of the most complained-about pirate sites last month certainly shook things up, but there have been unintended consequences too. A search for this week's most popular movie reveals relatively unknown sites dominating results and pulling record traffic. However, there are also some dangerous side-effects.
Periodically the search giant has announced a tweak here and there, but in mid October Google said it was about to implement the most important change yet.
The effects were quickly noticeable. Within days the world’s largest torrent sites took an immediate hit in search engine traffic. So was this the holy grail the studios and record labels had been looking for?
Each week TF publishes a list of the top 10 pirate movie downloads and in our latest edition Dawn of the Planet of the Apes topped the charts. So, with the big sites mainly disappeared from the first pages of results, would the movie still be easy to find using “dawn of the planet of the apes torrent” as a search?
Simple answer – yes. Not only that, sites the majority of people have never heard of are now reaping the rewards of Google’s downgrades.
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While torrents can still be easily found for this movie after the October downranking, there are some big negatives for anyone who relied on Google to provide them with the best possible results.
First of all, since Google is essentially gaming the system, it’s no longer possible to rely on the search engine to produce the best links on the most popular sites. It doesn’t matter if Pirate Bay or KickassTorrents links are the most trafficked torrents, sites with unusual names that few people know are now at the top of results. This has undermined a valuable commodity….
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While the sites mentioned above are offering torrents and clearly benefiting traffic-wise, we have deliberately left out several sites from our report. Thanks to their lack of DMCA breaches some sites are much closer to the top than they should be when Google is presented with movie + torrent searches. Sadly these sites have something evil in mind – malware.
Hollywood might publicly warn that some file-sharing sites are havens for viruses and spyware, but Google’s actions have dredged up the real filth from the bottom and that will mean a lot of people paying the price. Having these sites downranked is not on the agenda.
Looks like this is a good time to move to Bing:
However, a much easier option is to switch over to Bing, which not only automatically and conveniently adds “torrent” to the end of a search for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but also presents the world’s biggest torrent sites on the first page.
When that fails users can simply visit the sites themselves, which the majority have been doing anyway.
