DMCA complaint effects the Google SERPs

Came across this today when doing a Google search for “seo company”:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

That they take DMCA complaints seriously at G might be newsworthy per se – but posting this notice on a SERPs page is even more noteworthy.

2 Comments.

  1. We’ve done that for several years; since 2002 I believe. I think every time a result would have shown up (that had a DMCA complaint against it), we show this message. It’s good because it gives the searcher some notice that we had to take action under the DMCA.

  2. Thanks for clarification Matt, I personally have noticed it for the first time and I don’t realy remember anyone writing much about G in connection with DMCA before so I thought I’d post it. It is certainly a helpful feature as searchers should be aware of any manual action taken by G in this case.