A Press Gazette investigation into parasite SEO firm Clickout Media has been removed from Google’s search index after a spurious legal complaint.
On Wednesday (25 March), Press Gazette revealed how UK-based Clickout Media has bought a number of news websites in order to exploit their reputations in Google and promote online casinos.
In some cases, journalists have been fired and replaced with AI-powered writers. Some sites were removed from Google’s search results as a result of Press Gazette’s reporting, effectively killing the sites off.
Now Press Gazette’s own reporting of this issue has been removed from the Google archive after a bogus copyright complaint.
A search of the exact Press Gazette headline: “The SEO parasites buying, exploiting and ultimately killing online newsbrands” does not bring the article up.
A note at the bottom of the Google search results page reveals for this query states: “In response to multiple complaints that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 2 results from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaints that caused the removals at LumenDatabase.org: Complaint, Complaint.”
According to the Lumen Database, a public archive of legal complaints sent to internet platforms, the article was removed by Google following a complaint sent via the “US Hub” of an unnamed “private” entity. This suggests the complaint originated outside the US.
The spurious and completely ungrounded complaint suggested Press Gazette’s entirely original investigation infringed the copyright of a 2024 article on The Verge about a similar topic (even though The Verge is not the complainant).
The complaint said: “The infringing news website has blatantly and willfully violated copyright law by copying our entire content word for word, including all images, which are solely owned by our company. This includes the complete replication of our original written material, as published on our official website, along with the proprietary visuals accompanying it. Despite multiple good-faith efforts to resolve this matter amicably, the infringing party (hereinafter referred to as ‘Infringer’) continues to unlawfully publish and distribute our copyrighted content without permission. This is a direct and flagrant breach of our rights and a clear violation of Google’s copyright policies. We hereby demand the immediate removal of this infringing material from Google search results to protect our intellectual property.”
Press Gazette has asked Google to comment on this and explain why the article has been removed from search.
A Search Engine Land follow-up of Press Gazette’s original report has also been removed from SEO results after a similar complaint.
Writing on X, SEO consultant Glenn Gabe said: “Surprised this was approved by Google…This is a BS DMCA takedown that doesn’t even make sense.”
Legal challenges to DMCA take-down requests can take weeks or months to play out.
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