A copyright claim may remove a page from Google search results based on a notice, even if the ownership claims are later disputed or inaccurate. Press journal we’ve seen this happen twice this year.
In late June, the journalism outlet announced that a second article in its reporting on marketing company Clickout Media had been removed from Google Search following an anonymous complaint filed under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
An earlier deletion in March affected the initial survey of the same series. Both complaints cite unrelated content as their source. Press Gazette called both complaints spurious.
The details of who dropped them off are still a little sketchy. The March notice came via a “US Hub” from an unnamed private entity, while the June notice came from a sender the outlet could not identify. In both cases, an original, active page was removed from Google results, and Press Gazette questions the ownership claims behind each review.
In March, this allegedly copied work was a 2024 article on the tech site The Verge, which had nothing to do with the complaint. In June, it was a month-old and since-deleted forum post about online casinos. Neither fit the story they were supposed to target.
The March takedown didn’t stop at just one item. It also removed a follow-up to the same story from another trade publication.
How deletion works
Under the DMCA, a person claiming to own a copyright can send Google a notice asking it to remove a page from search results. The page may be removed from the list if Google acts on the review. The burden of contesting it then falls on the site owner.
Google’s account of the system leaves room for this result. In his Transparency reportGoogle says that people who submit requests may provide inaccurate information, that it cannot always verify the accuracy of a request, and that it cannot always notify a site owner before content is removed.
The law does not require Google to decide whether the copyright claim itself is valid, which is why a disputed page may remain out of the results for some time, even after the owner objects to it. Roger Montti has explained why the law leaves Google little room to maneuver. When a page is removed from the list, Google adds a line at the bottom of the affected results page. It states that the results were removed due to a DMCA complaint and provides a link to the Lumens Databasewhere the notice is stored. A user only notices this discrepancy if they read that far.
A tactic that has already surfaced
Copyright takedowns previously targeted search results. In 2018, I reported a tactic in which people posing as rights holders submitted fake DMCA notices to push competitors down in search rankings. Sometimes they even used names similar to real companies to make their claims credible. These targets ranged from pirate sites to at least one small business challenged by a competitor.
The weakness also appears in other removal tools. Roger Montti covered a Google bug last August, which allowed anonymous attackers to use the public URL removal tool to deindex live pages, and one site lost more than 400 articles still online.
Google’s Danny Sullivan said that at the time there was no way to prevent these deletions. Although it was a different exploit, the main problem was similar. A removal system designed for a specific purpose may unexpectedly become a way to remove content that someone wants to disappear.
The Press Gazette affair is part of a broader debate about the company and its media coverage. The report describes a parasitic SEO operation in which a company buys established websites to boost its presence on Google. SEJ looked into this practice in Novemberduring which Google defended its efforts to enforce site reputation rules as the European Commission began its investigation.
Scale is difficult to measure
It’s quite difficult to determine how often fake or disputed reviews end up. Lumen, which operates as a research project, holds tens of millions of takedown notices covering billions of URLs. Researchers have leveraged this resource to reveal organized copyright abuse campaigns, often aimed at reputation management.
Lumen itself emphasizes that having a review on file does not prove that the request was valid or that a platform actually acted on it. The record simply shows what was requested, not whether the claim was accurate.
Google states that it refuses requests that it identifies as abusive or inaccurate, and Technical dirt has described Google as more aggressive than most sites in rejecting questionable DMCA notices. In the March case, SEO consultant Glenn Gabe wrote on X that the complaint to clear Google’s checks surprised him, calling it a withdrawal that made no sense. The June complaint was still in effect when Press Gazette reported it.
Why it matters
The takedown process may seem like a small step, as the person filing a notice does not face many immediate, real-world consequences. It doesn’t cost much to make a false declaration either. The targeted person or entity will have to notice the deletion, file a counter-notice, and then go through the process, which can seem a little daunting.
Imbalance affects the length of time a page is missing. When the March Press Gazette article was removed, it was quickly restored about a day after contacting Google. However, the June article was still missing when they released their follow-up. In such cases, scope may affect how quickly a deletion is reviewed. The news agency was able to publicly announce the first removal, something most sites cannot do.
A page removed due to a bad claim may remain outside of Google’s results for the duration of the dispute process, which takes at least a few days and often longer. For a page that generates leads or sales, this gap has a direct cost. Deletion is also done smoothly, so a site owner may not realize a page is gone until traffic decreases.
What you can do
You can reduce the time a withdrawal goes unnoticed. Google’s removal line is at the bottom of the results page for affected queries, so searching your own key titles and pages may reveal one. A sudden drop in impressions or clicks for a single URL in Search Console could be an early signal worth checking out. The Lumen database allows you to search for reviews naming your domain.
If a page is removed and you believe the claim is incorrect, Google’s process allows for a counter-notification. Filing it quickly is important because the restoration time doesn’t start until Google receives it. Google DMCA Help Pages outline the steps and what a counter-notice should include. Waiting 10 to 14 business days after a valid counter-notice is legal.
Keeping time-stamped copies of your own work is also helpful. A one-page public record record, with its publication date, provides you with proof of original authorship if a later complaint claims you copied it.
None of this prevents you from filing a complaint. This reduces the window between deletion and response, which is the part you control.
Looking to the future
Some of the legal reasons behind this issue are beyond Google’s control, fueling a discussion about whether the opt-out system needs to be updated.
This debate could continue for years. The more pressing question is how quickly you would notice if one of your pages suddenly disappeared. Monitoring your own moves is a thin defense, but for now, it’s the best option available.
More resources
Featured Image: Artistic creations from the summit/Shutterstock
