Heigh Ho, Filter, Away: You Cannot Find Info If It Is Not in the Index
July 19, 2018
Google recently revealed some data about the effects of adjustments it made to its algorithm back in 2014 in an effort to minimize piracy. TorrentFreak shares these figures in, “Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results.” Writer Ernesto informs us:
“In a comment to Australian media, Google states that it has demoted 65,000 sites in search results, a list that’s still growing every week. In total, the company received DMCA takedown requests for over 1.8 million domain names, so a little under 4% of these are downranked. The result of the measures is that people are less likely to see a pirate site when they type ‘watch movie X’ or ‘download song Y.’ This means that these sites see a drop in visitors from Google and a quite significant one too. ‘Demotion results in sites losing around 90 percent of their visitors from Google Search,’ a Google spokesperson told The Age. Indeed, soon after the demotion signal was implemented, pirate sites were hit hard. However, pirates wouldn’t be pirates if they didn’t respond with their own countermeasures. In recent years, many infringing sites have hopped from domain to domain, in part to circumvent the downranking efforts. In addition, Google’s measures also created an opportunity for smaller, less reputable, sites to catch search traffic that would otherwise go to the main players.”
Still, it seems to be a net win against piracy, all told. Some still call for Google to completely remove sites guilty of piracy from their search results, a move Google has its reasons for refusing to make. We’re reminded the company has also described piracy as an “availability and pricing problem,” and says governments should be promoting new business models instead of laying blame at the search engine’s feet. That is an interesting argument.
Cynthia Murrell, July 19, 2018
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