By Stewart Tongue

YNOT – Starting next week, websites for which the world’s most popular search engine receives a large number of DMCA takedown notices may see their Google search rankings plummet.

According to Google’s Amit Singhal, the search engine’s algorithm has been adjusted to penalize websites that suspected of containing pirated intellectual property.

“We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results,” Singhal wrote on Google’s blog. “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.

“This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily — whether it’s a song previewed on NPR’s music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.”

While the official announcement suggests the takedown notices will be only one of hundreds of “signals” used by the Google algorithm and only “valid copyright removal notices” will be given significant weight in the evaluation process, webmasters already are bracing for what may be a volatile period for search engine optimization experts and site owners.

The chief concern among prominent adult SEO experts is the possibility of so called “black hat negative SEO” methods used by unscrupulous webmasters. One concern holds that black-hat efforts may shift to the creation and distribution of DMCA notices for highly ranked sites, whether or not the sites engage in digital piracy. The news, some fear, may provoke flurries of automated DMCA takedown notices for the simple purpose of damaging a competitor’s rank.

The official announcement from Google did pay lip service to the idea that caution is important when the potential delisting websites is at stake.

“We’ll continue to provide ‘counter-notice’ tools so that those who believe their content has been wrongly removed can get it reinstated,” Singhal stated on the blog.

Google has requested end-users send feedback about the planned change and other concerns via email.