Google (GOOG) has fired its cannons at several of the top pirate sites on the web.
Google released an update this week that changed what websites appear in its searches. This update included changes that saw several of the top pirate websites get bumped down in search results. The search specifically drops pirate sites in searches that include words such as “download,” “watch” and “torrent”, reports TorrentFreak.
Following Google’s pirate update, torrent and other pirate sites have seen a decrease in traffic. The changes target websites with a high amount of DMCA takedown requests. This has also resulted in several less known pirate sites being bumped up in searches. The company’s goal is to get legal websites more traffic, TorrentFreak notes.
“For example, the query ‘expendables download’ returns an ad format at the top of the page advertising Google Play, Vudu, and Amazon,” Google told NewsFactor Network. “The same ad format triggers on queries for queries like ‘expendables torrent.’ While relatively few users search in this way compared to root queries like ‘expendables,’ we are happy that these new ad formats are driving traffic to legitimate sources of media.”
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