Google to launch new search engine version to counter web piracy

The new version of Google's search engine being rolled out this week would ''visibly affect'' the way it presented and ranked piracy websites around the world, rt.com reported.

The announcement was made by the company on its Public Policy Blog, in an attempt to detail its ongoing efforts to deal with piracy. These new changes to the search algorithm would affect users across the world.

Google noted in its online statement that the changes came as an addition to tweaks it had already made two years ago.

''In August 2012 we first announced that we would downrank sites for which we received a large number of valid DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] notices,'' Google's senior copyright counsel, Katherine Oyama, wrote online.

''We've now refined the signal in ways we expect to visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites."

Additionally, the search giant said it will be ''demoting autocomplete predictions that return results with many DMCA demoted sites.''

The changes come as Google looks to redirect users to sites where they could legally watch, stream, or download movies and music.

The way advertisements would be presented was also being tweaked, with links to legal streaming services and online shops presenting users with destinations when they used certain keywords.

The new ad format would be first introduced in the US, before being implemented internationally.

Meanwhile, according to commentators, Google's anti-piracy efforts would see major tweaks made to its search engine this week to ensure 'notorious' piracy sites were out of the search results when people searched for music, films and other copyrighted content, Techie News reported.

The search engine giant had also published an updated How Google Fights Piracy report that explains how it attempted to fight piracy across its services.

The report was originally launched in September 2013 to defend against claims by holders of music and film rights that the search company was not doing enough to tackle mass copyright infringement.

''We've now refined the signal in ways we expect to visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites. This update will roll out globally starting next week.''

According to the report, Google's new ad formats had been designed to lead users to legitimate sources when they searched for things like ''download'', ''free'' or ''watch'' alongside music and movie-related search queries.