According to a new report that has been compiled recently, the number of requests to delist sites has gone up by about 75% in 2014. These requests, commonly known as DCMA takedown requests, are sent to Google by publishers and businesses who claim that a particular site or page is performing some type of illegal activity. Likely the most common example would be illegally sharing music or movies.
When these sites are found, a request is made to Google to have their sites delisted or de-indexed from the search engine’s search results. While this doesn’t actually remove the page from the internet, it effectively renders it invisible to the vast majority of people online.
In 2014, the sites with the most requests for removal were 4shared, Uploaded and Rapidgator. These are all high profile file sharing sites, which are commonly used to illegally share music, movies and even books.
According to the report, there were about 345 million takedown requests made to Google in 2014 alone.
Of course, a request being made to Google does not automatically mean that Google will remove the page from their search results. In addition to these takedown requests, Google also fights against piracy and other illegal activities with updates to their search algorithms, which automatically delist some sites and push others way down in the search results so they are rarely, if ever, found.
