Google’s /goto change: The latest challenge for third-party SEO data
Google’s /goto URLs add to a series of changes making third-party SERP data harder to collect and rank tracking less reliable.
Topic: Digital Millennium Copyright Act
DMCA as a weapon: How to fight fraudulent takedown claims
A fraudulent DMCA notice can cost you search visibility. Here’s what to document, how to file a counter-notice, and when to escalate.
5 strategies to remove negative search results in 2026
How to remove, deindex, and suppress negative content in Google and why AI search changes the reputation playbook this year.
Google loses key DMCA claims against SerpApi in scraping lawsuit
Google has 21 days to amend part of its lawsuit after the court found its SearchGuard allegations were not sufficiently supported.
How to fix a suspended Google Merchant Center account
Identify why your Merchant Center was flagged, audit your site and feed, and fix issues before requesting a review.
How Google’s removal tools work for SEO and reputation management
A practitioner’s guide to deindexing, removal requests, and managing client search results.
Google removes Search Engine Land article after false DMCA claim
Our report on Clickout Media's AI-driven gambling sites vanished from Google after a dubious copyright claim.
SerpApi asks court to throw out Reddit scraping complaint
In its dismissal bid, SerpApi argues reading public Google results isn't DMCA circumvention and warns Reddit is stretching platform power.
How to detect AI-written content & plagiarism accurately
Learn how to detect AI-written content and plagiarism using tools, manual techniques, and best practices to ensure originality, compliance, and trust.
SerpApi moves to dismiss Google scraping lawsuit
SerpApi says Google is stretching the DMCA to protect ad revenue, not copyrights — casting the case as a fight over access to public SERPs.
Inside SearchGuard: How Google detects bots and what the SerpAPI lawsuit reveals
We fully decrypted SearchGuard, the anti-bot system protecting Google Search. Here's exactly how Google tells humans and bots apart.
Google AI Overviews: How to remove or suppress negative content
AI Overviews can surface harmful content. Mitigate it by boosting brand signals, improving E-E-A-T, and reinforcing trustworthy information.
Holiday ecommerce to hit record $253 billion – here’s what’s driving it
Mobile, AI, social media and big discounts are transforming how Americans shop online this holiday season, according to Adobe’s forecast.
What is YMYL? Google’s high-stakes content category
YMYL content affects lives and finances—so Google holds it to higher standards. Learn what qualifies as YMYL and how to meet E-E-A-T expectations.
What is negative SEO? And how to prevent, detect, and recover from it
Learn how negative SEO works, how to spot common attacks like spammy links, and what steps to take to protect your site and recover lost rankings.
9 strategies for removing negative content from the web
Here are ways to remove webpages and online posts harmful to your brand – from privacy claims and copyright notices to legal measures.
Google Search goes after fraudulent and manipulative DMCA takedown requests
The lawsuit alleges two men created over 65 Google accounts and submitted hundreds of thousands of fake DMCA takedown requests to remove competitors from the search results.
New Google Merchant Center policy: AI-generated reviews are spam
In addition to its Automated Content policy, Google clarified its existing Merchant Center policies and enforcement behavior.
This day in search marketing history: March 14
Learn what happened on this day in search marketing history – including developments in SEO, PPC, search and digital marketing.
This day in search marketing history: January 12
Google Panda becomes a core ranking signal, plus: R.I.P. link command, Google Japan’s PageRank penalty expires and more.
DMCA request removes Moz from Google Search index
This shouldn't happen, but it did - and that is scary.
Beware of fake DMCA link requests by AI-generated lawyers
If you received a DMCA legal request demanding a link from a lawyer, well, that might be a scam.
Google’s Pirate Update can cause 89% drop in search traffic for offending sites
A recent document Google sent to the U.S. Copyright Office shows just how much being hit by the Pirate Update can sting.
Google to allow removal of counterfeit goods from search results
You can now submit a form to request Google to review and take down counterfeit goods from Google search.
Chapter 8: Toxins & search engine spam penalties
Anyone entering the realm of search engine optimization is likely to encounter some questionable (aka “black hat”) tactics, or Toxins, as we call them in our Periodic Table of SEO Factors. These are shortcuts, or tricks, that may have been sufficient to guarantee a high ranking back in the day when the engines’ methods were […]
Google explains why syndicators may outrank original publishers
How to ensure your syndicated partners don't outrank you in Google.
User-generated content for SEO: The cost-benefit analysis you need
Understand the pros of UGC and precautions to make sure it helps, not hurts, your SEO efforts.
NY federal court decision threatens embedding and linking across the web
The judge's decision disregards existing law and if upheld could expose bloggers and publishers to potential copyright lawsuits.
Bing updates its DMCA take-downs and copyright removal process
Bing Webmaster Tools gains a content removal section for viewing and appealing DMCA take-downs.
The myth of the duplicate content penalty
There is a lot of confusion surrounding how Google handles duplicate content, but columnist Patrick Stox aims to clear it up once and for all.
SearchCap: Google quality raters guide, search console bug & movie times
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google+ accounts no longer required for leaving local reviews in Google Apr 4, 2016 by Barry Schwartz Google revamped the interface to add reviews on local results and dropped the Google+ […]
Columbia University researchers claim 28% of Google’s URL takedown requests are invalid
Among the questionable DMCA notices, 4.2% of the takedown requests targeted sites that failed to include any copyright-infringing content.
Google Received More Than 65 Million URL Takedown Requests In The Past Month
The current number of weekly URL copyright removal requests is nearly double what it was this time last year.
Piracy Groups Want Google To Remove The Whole Site After Valid DMCA Filings
Google writes a letter to the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator opposing whole-site removal over DMCA complaints.
SearchCap: Google Car Insurance, DMCA Takedowns, Urbanspoon & Super Bowl Answers
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Zomato Buys Urbanspoon For $50 – $60 Million To Enter US Local Search Market International restaurant search provider Zomato has acquired Urbanspoon from IAC for between $50 and $60 million in […]
DMCA Takedown Database ChillingEffects.org Takes Itself Out Of Search Results
The irony here is almost too obvious to mention: an entity dedicated to monitoring the potential “chilling effects” of DMCA takedown notices is censoring itself. Chillingeffects.org has now removed itself from search results, making those notices harder to find. Chillingeffects.org was created in roughly 2001 as an academic and public resource to monitor and record potentially improper DMCA requests. […]
Google Link Removal Requests Climb To 345 Million In 2014
Torrent Freak study reveals the number of Google's takedown notices were up 75% from 2013.
After More Than Two Years, Google Finally Releasing New “Pirate Update” To Fight Piracy
In August 2012, to stem accusations that it doesn’t do enough to fight piracy, Google released what’s known as the Pirate Update, a system that penalized sites deemed to be violating copyright laws. Next week, Google is finally going to refresh that system to catch new offenders and release others that may have cleaned up […]
Celeb Lawyer To Google: Block Nudes Or Pay $100 Million
As reported by several media outlets, an LA-based attorney representing “over a dozen female celebrities” whose photos were hacked and stolen in the recent iCloud nude photo scandal has threatened Google with $100 million in damages if the company doesn’t immediately block or remove the celebrities’ images. The lawyer, Martin Singer, sent a demand letter […]
SearchCap: Google Multilingual, Bing Ads Editor Update & Google DMCA At New Levels
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Search App Is Now Truly Multilingual Around the world millions of people are multilingual or partly so. In the US, census data reflect that 20 percent of the population speaks […]