Google search to penalise “Pirate” sites

The Google search algorithm is something very important, To those who know and understand how it works there is much to be made from it. Google constantly reminds us that it doesn’t change it for anyone, only modifies it to make searches more relevant and useful for consumers.

Well Google has changed it for someone. After being persistently lobbied by the entertainment industry Google has finally caved. It has agreed that sites with a high number of valid DMCA (digital milennium copyright act) notices will have their search engine rank lowered in order to deter piracy and stop them from gaining traffic from illegal filesharing.

Google’s definition of Valid is not known. It seems likely that legitimate DMCA notices for YouTube won’t be taken into account – or Google would end up punishing itself. However, Google maintains it will not be deciding the validity of copyright claims – only courts can do that.

“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, Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law,” said Amit Singhal, SVP of Engineering at Google Search.

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