Isohunt.to visitor traffic halves after Google algorithm changes – update

Major download site Isohunt.to has seen a drastic drop in traffic from Google in the past week. Google has made changes to its search algorithm that lower the rankings of major download sites such as Isohunt.to and Torrentz.

Traffic from Google to Isohunt.to has halved in the past week, the team behind the well-known torrent site told Torrentfreak. Based on results from Google for 100 typical search terms for torrent sites, Torrentfreak concludes that the visibility of Isohunt.to, KickassTorrents and Torrentz has decreased significantly in the last few days. The Pirate Bay would be less affected by this because it receives more direct traffic and is less dependent on Google.

The reduced visibility of the major torrent sites follows an adjustment of Google’s search engine algorithms. Since last week, Google has been giving those sites a lower ranking, with the amount of removal requests by rights holders playing an important role. Google already weighed those requests from the music and film industry in the ranking, but the impact has increased significantly with the recent adjustments. The smaller piracy sites have therefore gained an advantage over the more famous names, until Google also gets more takedown requests about these sites.

Google has been under fire for years from the entertainment industry, which believes the search giant is too lax in its fight against piracy. Simultaneously with the changes to the search algorithm, Google is showing more emphatic links to legal alternatives for search terms such as ‘download’ and ‘watch’, the company reports in its report ‘How Google fights piracy’ released last week.

Update, Tuesday, 10.00: Added new graph of Isohunt.to traffic decline.