In the months that followed its traffic exploded and the site soon settled itself among the ten most popular torrent sites, with more than a million unique visitors a day.

NowTorrents attributed its success mostly to Google. The owner had spent a lot of effort in optimizing the site for search engines and this certainly paid off, as 90% of the visitors came through the search mogul. But two weeks ago, everything changed. Suddenly the traffic wave from Google was reduced to a trickle, causing the number of visitors to plunge.

NowTorrents’ founder told TorrentFreak that he tried to contact Google about the issue, but the company said it couldn’t comment on the rankings of search results. It’s clear that the site has not been removed from Google, as all of its pages remained indexed. However, NowTorrents pages do show up much lower in the search results, an indication that Google may have penalized the site.

It is not unlikely that Google decided to downgrade NowTorrents because it was a little ‘too well’ optimized, so to speak. Google has been known to punish sites that try to artificially inflate their search rankings. Although the site’s founder is not aware of anything that might have upset Google, the traffic drop was irreversible.

For the site’s founder there was no other option than to start over from scratch. In fact, he took the opportunity to relaunch the site under a new name, hoping to get back some of the Google juice. He was already working on a new version of the site, so the timing couldn’t have been better.

The new and improved NowTorrents has been renamed to TorrentFly today, and regular visitors will notice quite a few changes to the site’s layout and search functionality.

One of the new features is that members can not only can pick which sites TorrentFly should search, but also in what order the results should appear. Another advantage for members is that they won’t see any advertising.

“Aside from the layout change and added features, TorrentFly has a ton of minor changes and improvements to the backend, which should result in better and faster search results,” the site’s founder told TorrentFreak.

Indeed, the search results on TorrentFly appear within a few milliseconds and the changes to the site are a step in the right direction. Now all TorrentFly can hope for is that Google stays friendly.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Torrent sites have been the target of these removal requests more than once, and Google usually removes the ‘infringing’ torrent detail pages from their search results fairly quickly.

According to Google the altered search results are caused by DMCA complaints the company receives from copyright holders. One of the most recent takedown requests, sent by a company that protects the copyrights of porn producers, was targeted at The Pirate Bay.

“In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed X result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org,” Google users can now read beneath the search results for The Pirate Bay and similar terms.

Now this wouldn’t be that odd if only a few adult film torrents were removed from the search results. However, those who take a closer look will notice that the takedown request resulted in a ban of the Pirate Bay frontpage from the search results.

As can be seen from the picture above the rest of the Pirate Bay domain is still indexed, but not the frontpage. This is not the end of the world of course but since there are no torrents listed on the Pirate Bay frontpage, Google has clearly made a mistake here.

The details of the takedown notice that was sent by Removeyourcontent are not yet available, but it may be that it included the Pirate Bay frontpage and that Google removed it without checking whether the claim was legitimate.

TorrentFreak has contacted Google for a response, but thus far we haven’t heard back from them. If it is indeed a mistake we assume that it will be corrected soon. Perhaps they can delete the scammy PirateBay.com site while they’re at it?

Update: Destined Enterprises, the company that operates the site that sent the takedown requests according to Google, claims they haven’t asked Google to remove the Pirate Bay homepage from the search results (although they are not completely sure). In a letter (pdf) the company’s lawyer has sent to Google a few minutes ago, they request a copy of the takedown notice, fearing that someone else might use their name to send these takedown notices.

Update 2: Google has lifted the Pirate Bay ban. The homepage appears in the search results again. The DMCA notice in question is also published and the Pirate Bay homepage is not listed there, so it’s likely that Google made a mistake.

Update 3 Google says the mistake was due to “takedown request that erroneously listed thepiratebay.org.” The company that sent the takedown notice denies this. “They are blaming us but it’s ok. We are used to it,” they told TorrentFreak.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

On the one hand this offers newcomers to BitTorrent a familiar interface to find all sorts of torrent files directly from the uTorrent homepage. The search engine uses Google’s search algorithms to find .torrent files on sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt. BitTorrent Inc. profits from this through search based ads that Google adds to the search results.

This seems to be a win-win situation for everyone but for reasons unknown, Google no longer allows uTorrent to use the custom search program. When entering a keyword into the search box on the website the following error is returned (see picture). BitTorrent Inc. has now removed the search box but they have no clue why they have this problem with Google.

Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management told TorrentFreak that there is indeed a problem but that they yet have to find out the details. At this stage we can only guess at the reasoning behind the lack of functionality. Most BitTorrent sites are not allowed to serve Google ads because they link to copyrighted content, but since uTorrent was only linking to these sites indirectly through Google’s own search engine, this seems less likely.

Yet there are more BitTorrent oriented sites that have faced similar problems. The Pirate Google, another website that uses Google’s custom search had similar problems recently.

uTorrent’s search has been down for around 5 days now, so one could expect a technical issue to be resolved by now, but until we hear back from Google the actual cause is open to speculation. The net effect is the same though – uTorrent’s revenue from this source isn’t rising as planned.

Update: We heard from “The Pirate Google” admin that Google did indeed block inbound queries from his site. He found a temporary workaround but this proves that Google is actively blocking (these) torrent related sites. Don’t be evil?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

While the added search is not a particular good way to find torrents, its addition to the site is an interesting move by BitTorrent Inc. Not so long ago, uTorrent removed the search boxes to sites like Mininova and isoHunt from their client, as per requests from copyright holders. However, since BitTorrent Inc. closed its video store, there is now no need to please Hollywood and they are free to link to torrent sites again.

Last December we reported that BitTorrent.com added a torrent search engine that works with Ask.com, and uTorrent.com now follows with a Google powered search engine. Neither site hosts any files, they simply act as a meta-search engine. Below is an example of a search for aXXo on uTorrent. Ironically, the Google ad that appears here links to a uTorrent scam site.

Google-powered search engines are nothing new, though. There are a few dozen sites that use Google’s coop program, such as TorrentScoop. All these sites display ads from Google’s Adsense program, ads that are not allowed on ‘regular’ torrent sites because they would violate Google’s terms of service. In fact, a few weeks ago isoHunt lost their Google ad feed which ran through Ask because some advertisers complained.

Double standard or not, the search engine on uTorrent’s homepage is bound to get some decent traffic. Let’s hope that they will keep an eye on the scammy ads though, we know from experience that it requires continuous attention.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Among other tools, M-Lab will run the Glasnost application developed by the Max Planck Institute. Last year, tests performed with the Glasnost tool revealed that Comcast and Cox were actively interfering with the BitTorrent transfers of their subscribers.

The Java applet developed by the Glasnost project uploads and downloads data via BitTorrent for a few seconds, and compares that to your regular download speed. It detects if your ISP is limiting all BitTorrent traffic, or just the flow of data through well known BitTorrent ports. All in all this tool should be able to tell you whether your ISP is messing with BitTorrent traffic or not.

In their quest for Net Neutrality, Google is backing the M-Lab project with 36 servers in 12 locations. Google will also provide network connectivity for the tools hosted on M-Lab. The servers Google has promised will be rolled out over the next few months, while the PlanetLab Consortium manages the tools hosted on the site.

The project aims to reveal the throttling practices of ISPs worldwide and put an end to all the secrecy. “Transparency has always been essential to the Internet’s success, and everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they’re getting when they sign up for broadband,” says M-Lab, explaining the ideals behind its website.

Among the other Net Neutrality tools hosted on M-Lab is a diagnostic tool which allows user to test their connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of any slowdowns. More tools will be added soon, Google powered.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Google has a policy of not displaying ads on sites that are involved in or linked to copyright infringement, with many torrent sites previously excluded from the scheme. Of course, some still carry Google ads, purely because Google is unaware of the nature of those sites, but with IsoHunt the situation is different. On IsoHunt the Google ads aren’t directly served by Google, but by Ask.com, a Google AdWords ‘reseller’.

Ask.com, formerly known as Ask Jeeves, works with several other BitTorrent sites. Only on IsoHunt have they displayed search based ads that came from Google AdWords campaigns. They have been doing so for several months, perhaps years, but up until now nobody complained, or knew.

Several companies whose ads appeared on IsoHunt, including online bookseller Bokkilden and search engines Sesam and Kvasir don’t have that much to complain about. However, there are others who are less happy.

Media giant Sony BMG and Norwegian online music store Platekompaniet have both reacted strongly to the news that their ads have appeared on IsoHunt. Artist sponsor StatoilHydro called the situation “regrettable”, adding “We would certainly prefer not contribute to the financing of sites like this.”

In a statement, Jan-Henrik Ohme, head of digital marketing at Sony BMG said “We have stopped the section of the campaign that goes to the third party until Google cleans up the issues. We have contacted Google, and they took immediate action.”

For its part, Google Norway has apologized for the situation, and said that the advertisers should not be held responsible for the placement of the ads, since due to the 3rd party involvement, they had no way of knowing where they would appear. The campaigns are not limited to Norway though, and Ask.com certainly has something to explain to Google.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

On a free account, users of Google’s App Engine can host 500MB data, and serve up to 5 million page views a month. This is more than enough for a medium sized BitTorrent site. At the moment it is not possible to upgrade these limits, since paid accounts are not yet available, but this might change in the future.

Both sites are totally ad free, and great resources to search for torrents. V0rtex currently searches 12 BitTorrent sites, including established sites such as Mininova, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt. The site itself has a clean look and feel, and the search results are sortable by date, peers, seeds and more.

TorrentFreak spoke with Reda, the developer of the site, who told us that he started the project to learn how to code. “It was really fun and exciting to learn Python and Javascript/Ajax,” he said. His goal is not to compete with the big players though. Reda hasn’t even bothered to register a domain name for it since it was mainly a learning experience.

This is different for the other BitTorrent meta search engine hosted on Google’s App Engine, which does have its own domain. TorrentTab, which is a project of David Sánchez, is also using Google’s architecture to search for torrents. The site currently searches 10 sites, and presents the search results in tabs using Google Ajax Feed API.

David told TorrentFreak that he initially started the site on his own Internet connection. When the site started to attract more visitors, he had to find an alternative. Google’s App Engine seemed to be a great solution, so he recoded the site in Python and moved it over to Google’s infrastructure.

Unlike some of the other meta-search engines that use tabbed search results, TorrentTab is not merely loading the results from the other sites in a frame. Unfortunately there are no sorting options for the search results, which makes it hard to find the best seeded files, or the latest uploads.

Although V0rtex and TorrentTab are are not revolutionary in terms of features or functionality, it is great to see that Google is providing a free playground for BitTorrent startups. It’s always good to see some variety.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The graph clearly shows that Azureus was the most searched for client until the beginning of 2007, followed by BitComet. From then on, uTorrent took over and it continued to grow while BitComet and Azureus searches slowly decreased. Search statistics are of course only an indirect measure of the popularity of a BitTorrent client, but the graphs seem to follow the same pattern as actual usage statistics which we have reported before.

Worldwide

Another measure that is worth looking into is the geographical distribution of the searches. It is interesting to see how popular BitComet is in Asia. Currently, it is (based on searches) the preferred client in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong. However, uTorrent is most often searched for in most countries, especially in Moldova. Azureus, on the other hand, is a popular search term in Greece.

US

If we take a closer look at the US (you can do this for any country), we see that pretty much every BitTorrent client is popular in California. The graph shows that most uTorrent searches (relatively) come from Kentucky and California, Milpitas in particular. Azureus seems to be quite popular in Ohio, specifically in Salt Lake City. BitComet is the least searched for client of the three, but gets most search traffic from New York and California again, Monterey Park on this occasion.

Overall I would say that based on other statistics, the search data is a pretty close match to the actual BitTorrent client preferences. Google’s insights on the regional differences certainly have something to add to what we already know, but keep in mind that they are only search statistics. Most of all, it’s a fun tool to play around with on a Sunday afternoon when there’s not much news to go around.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

So, let’s see how well Google does, and how their traffic estimation and ranking compares to actual traffic data and Alexa’s ranking respectively.

One of the interesting features of Google’s site comparison is that it gives an estimation of the daily traffic when you’re logged in on a Google account. The data used for the traffic statistics comes from Google analytics, consumer panels, and other third-party market research.

The traffic data seem to be quite accurate, for some sites at least. The daily (absolute) unique visitors for Mininova, for example, is estimated to be slightly above 2 million a day, which matches with real traffic stats we got from the Mininova team.

As we look at the graph below we can clearly see that Mininova is in the lead judging by the number of visitors, followed by The Pirate Bay. isoHunt and Torrentz compete for the third place. After these four sites there is a huge gap to other BitTorrent sites such as BTjunkie, TorrentReactor and TorrentPortal.

It is interesting to see how many similarities there are between Google’s ranking, and the daily reach according to Alexa.

The regional differences in popularity of the sites are also worth mentioning. The Pirate Bay, for example, is more popular than Mininova in the US, and especially in Sweden. Torrentz, on the other hand, does really well in India, while isoHunt has a relatively large fanbase in Japan.

Overall it seems that BitTorrent sites are still growing, especially The Pirate Bay, since they nearly doubled their traffic in a year. This is pretty much in line with the growth in the number of peers on The Pirate Bay trackers, which went from 5 to well over 10 million in the last 12 months.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The owner of SumoTorrent told TorrentFreak that he discovered that A search on Google for sumotorrent now triggers the following message at the bottom of the results page:

“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.”

A search for other BitTorrent sites like Torrentspy and Torrentreactor comes up with the same message (note. the sites are still indexed but some results are removed). Strangely enough, for torrentreactor it only shows up for a search on the .com domain.

According to Google the filtered search results are caused by DMCA complaints , but the owner of SumoTorrent is a little surprised by this. He has no clue why the “content owner” didn’t contact him directly because he generally processes takedown notices within 24 hours. Unfortunately the link Google provides to the complaint in question doesn’t work, and a search on ChillingEffects.org doesn’t really help much either.

One of the few BitTorrent related DMCA complaints Google received concerned Paris Hilton’s famous . This notice was sent by Jim Salomon, the brother of Rick Salomon who used to date Paris. The complaint is hilarious, Jim even complains why it takes Google more than 4 hours to remove the .torrent in question. Funny or not, eventually Google decided to remove the .torrent file in question from their search results.

What Google has done isn’t really that revolutionary because most administrators of BitTorrent sites take down torrent files themselves upon request. However, the main reason for this is that they don’t want endless legal battles. They see it as a service to the content owners to remove the .torrent files if a decent request is made. But I kind of hoped that Google would make a stand here, wishful thinking so it seems.So what do you think? Should Google filter their results like this?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Up until now, we weren’t completely sure if this was going to be the YouTube killer that TPB fans everywhere have been talking about. But a statement published today on The Pirate Bay Blog outright confirms it:

“YES – we’re going to do a video streaming site. It’s true. It’s in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do.”

And it’s exactly that “Pirate Bay mentality” that, in our opinion, is going to make this site a winner. Think YouTube without Google constantly pulling down copyrighted videos.

Some clever TorrentFreak readers and TPB fans managed to locate the URL of the upcoming YouTube competitor. It is: thevideobay.org. All you can see on the site is a plain page with two lines of text:

only open for beta- and dev-testers.
some is live, most is not. we will open for public when done.

Stay tuned!

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

As you can see, ‘mininova’ was the 9th most searched for word on Google this year. There could be many reasons behind this, but the most obvious seems to be the fact that most people, including myself, initially type in ‘mininova.com’, but then realise that the site at that URL is not what we were looking for, and head to Google to find the real mininova located at mininova.org.

That’s definitely not the sole reason though, mininova has been steadily growing and is ranked among the top 3 BitTorrent sites along with The Pirate Bay and Torrentspy. In March of this year, mininova was leading the race, but in May we published an Alexa traffic rank comparing the three sites which put Torrentspy in the lead. Shortly after that, mininova passed 400 million downloads mark.

It’s quite obvious that more and more people are starting to use BitTorrent. Getting ranked as one of the most queried words on Google is possibly one of the highest honours any website can receive. It indicates that more than just a small niche of people are out there searching for it. We at TorrentFreak believe that mininova has become popular by word of mouth, more than anything.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Lars Ilshammar, an information-technology historian who recently suggested Sweden to impose a fee similar to the one proposed in France said to the IHT:

“The process for change has now begun in Sweden, but it’s clear that this problem cannot be solved by one country alone,” said “More countries have to come out of the closet.”

One thing is for sure. Things will, and must change. Don’t expect that the copyright restrictions will disappear, but we will definitely need more “rights” to copy. It almost seems like the easier it gets to share things, the harder the restrictions get. I mean, come on, how insane are those people if they request to take down clips of children dancing on their favorite song on youtube or google video? Uma Suthersanen, a professor of international copyright law at Queen Mary, a college at the University of London sums it up quite nice:

“The way it works now, it is a little as if you give the consumer a lollipop, and then smack them over their heads, saying that they can’t use what they’ve bought,”

Go Pirates.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

can you open two BitTorrent apps together

Well, you probably can, but even more intriguing… do you know any

secret BitTorrent websites

Well, I don’t. But since they’re secret. And another search, probably related

which is the best paid torrent site

Some people have too much money. But let’s go on with a more basic question

is torrentspy legal

And the Cheaters of course

hack bit torrent to increase share ratio
cheat upload speed BitTorrent
hack seeds torrent connect only

But there are still some good people out there

How do I speed up my BitTorrent upload?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.