Copyright Violating Sites Pushed Down in Search

The secret algorithm of Google has been further tweaked to counteract piracy. Google has been receiving several copyright infringement notices over the years. Now they have decided to take action against it through tweaking their search engine. The change in search algorithm will push the copyright infringement sites lower in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

How copyright infringement sites are targeted?

Whenever a URL removal request is filed against a domain or site the site is said to have involved in copyright violation. Generally, owners of particular content like, music, videos etc request Google to remove a URL if it violates copyright law. Depending upon the number of removal requests submitted, the URL would rank lower. For instance, let us consider that a particular site has been violating copyright laws. Several owners report the same to Google. Keeping this into account Google will decrease the SERPs of such sites or URLs.

More than 200 factors go into ranking a site. Now Google is looking to include copyright infringement within those numerous signals.

Will the site be de-indexed?

Amit Singhal who is Google’s senior vice-president for engineering has said that though the signal has been included in the algorithm, the page will not be removed completely unless a proper notice has been issued by the owner. He further states that the authority vests with the judge and content owner to know whether any site has violated copyright law. Google will merely try to bring the SERPs of such copyright violating sites down. However, it will also try reporting webmasters regarding any violation and will provide way to appeal. Therefore, those who feel that their site has been wrongly brought under copyright violation will get a chance to get it back.

How many Sites have been affected?

More and more removal notices pour in when compared to those in 2009. In the last 30 days, Google has reported 4.3 million URLs removal requests. All the activities will be transparent through their transparency report. A look at transparency report shows peer-to-peer file sharing sites are reported the highest while Hollywood organizations are the top reporters.

Webmasters Should be Aware

To rank and stay at the top of SERPs is nothing less than struggle. With the arrival of copyright infringement as one of the factors for ranking, webmasters should pay careful attention to their content. Any content unintentionally published may cause to lose the ranks that were hard to gain. It is time to pay attention as to what webmasters publish over their site.
Incoming of such signals that differs the ranking will grip violation of copyright even tighter. Personally, I have seen my article being used on other blogs without any credit. Now with Google interfering little harsher than before, it is possible to see a difference with no copyright violation, if not, lesser.

Image Credit: freedigitalpbotos.net

About the Author:
Richie Richardson is a passionate blogger about SEO and Internet Marketing. He also writes on how to pick an expert wordpress developer and the best way to outsource web development.