Has Google ever removed content of yours due to alleged copyright infringement?

[MichaelCorfman]

If someone submits a copyright complaint to Google regarding a site of yours, Google may immediately remove the content from their index pending review and provide you with the opportunity to respond. On March 7th I received such a notice from Google as shown below:

To the owner of https://www.igamingaffiliateprograms.com/ ,

Google has been notified that your site allegedly infringes upon the copyrights of others, and violates applicable copyright laws in your region.

It is Google's policy to remove copyrighted content when the copyright holder or their authorized representative alleges that a use is infringing. Therefore we are in the process of removing the reported content from Google Search results for users globally.

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found on the website of Lumen, a third-party aggregator of legal complaint notices, at http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=15710816 .

Please note that it may take several weeks for the notice to be posted on the above page.

What you can do next:

File an Appeal (Counter Notice)

If you feel that your sites or pages were mistakenly removed due to a copyright request filed against you, Google can reinstate these materials into our search results upon receipt of an appeal. This appeal is also known as a Counter Notice in some regions. To file a Counter Notice, please click on the button below: File An Appeal

If you cannot use the button above, you also can fill out an appeal manually using our Counter Notice form at g.co/legal . Please use the following reference ID when doing so: 0-1440000040033-0165489960

Speak to a lawyer

If you have legal questions about this notification, you may wish to speak to your own lawyer.

Here are the affected URL(s):

www.igamingaffiliateprograms.com/affiliate-program/multibrand-affiliates/

That same day I responded to Google to seek reinstatement of the page. In addition to wanting the page reinstated, I also wasn't sure whether such a complaint could cause reputational damage regarding the site in Google's eyes if I failed to respond. I found ChatGPT helpful in preparing a response. The is the substance of my response to Google:

The website www.igamingaffiliateprograms.com has existed since 2008 and is a directory of affiliate programs created and maintained by Information Technology Systems, Inc.

The page identified in the complaint was created based on our independent research into affiliate programs and publicly available information about them. The page does not reproduce copyrighted text or proprietary content belonging to the complainant.

The information presented consists of factual information about the affiliate program, including the name of the program, brands represented by the program, and software providers used by those brands. This information is compiled through independent research, including reviewing the brands’ websites and identifying the software providers for games offered by those brands using our internal database of game titles and suppliers.

The resulting list of software providers and other information on the page is an original compilation created by our company and is not copied from the complainant or from any proprietary source.

The page also includes small thumbnail screenshots of brand homepages solely for identification and reference purposes within the directory listing. These thumbnails are used in a limited and transformative manner to help users identify the brands referenced on the page and do not substitute for the original websites.

Because the page contains independently researched factual information and original compilation by our company, and the limited use of small reference thumbnails is for identification within a directory listing, we believe the removal request misidentified the material as infringing.

Then, just over a week later on lucky Friday the 13th March I received the following email reply from Google:

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

We have received your counter notice. We’ll forward it to the user who requested removal of your content. If we don’t receive proof that they have filed a legal action against you within 10 business days, we’ll reinstate the material in question. A legal action may be a lawsuit against you or a claim with a qualified alternative dispute resolution provider that names the URL(s) at issue and seeks a court order to restrain your alleged infringement.

For more information, please refer to our Copyright Help Center at support.google.com/legal/answer/4558836.

Regards,

The Google Team

For more information about our content removal process, see g.co/legal.

My current expectation is that the complainant will take no further action and that the content will be restored before the end of March.

For today's poll I ask if you have ever received notice of an infringement complaint from Google and whether or not you took any action in response. I also invite you to share why you did or did not take action, and whether any action you took resulted in reinstatement.

Michael

[TheGooner]

No but Google decided my blog was no good and shut it down - no discussion - no human - never got any chance of getting it back.
And Facebook also flagged the socials page - before re-instating after I clicked their button.

These AI moderated things are rubbish.

[golfbettingsystem]

No, but I helped a friend who's site had been cloned and we eventually managed to have that taken down.

[ARZ]

Our content was never removed, coz we write our own But many times we were copied by some scammers

[Mattbar]

Never had google actually remove content but we did once get a request against us by someone who claimed we had cloned their site. In reality they had paid a third-party to build a site for them who had cloned our site. We might not have noticed for a while had they not submitted a request against us. That ended up with them having egg on their face and likely wasting a lot of money.

[PaulEchere]

Wow, that's pretty extreme to just pull the entire site of index like that. Happy you got it sorted eventually.
I personally have only received emails and notices of such things which were in reality scam / phishing attempts.

[Cash Bonus]

No, but I helped a friend who's site had been cloned and we eventually managed to have that taken down.

I've never had this problem before either, but it happened to a family member of mine, instead of a friend. We managed to eventually resolve the trouble.

[NoDepositCasinos]

No, Google has never removed any of my content for alleged copyright infringement so far. What I have received, though, are messages from scammers demanding money in exchange for not taking legal action against me for supposedly using their copyrighted content (which, of course, was completely unfounded).

[kwblue]

Sort of, but dissimilar. I got the following notice from Google yesterday:

Notice of removal from Google Search
To the owner of https://slotsonfire.com/,

Google has received a legal complaint regarding certain URLs from your website, and we’re in the process of blocking content from certain URLs on your website from appearing in our Google Search results on the following country-level services:

https://www.google.co.uk

I think they listed every URL.

I did not properly follow UK guidelines to only promoting specific casinos. Accreddited Casinos are not all that easy to find on the GamblingCommission.gov.uk website. They filed the complaint. I was unaware of this type of thing being gone from the industry so long.

So - now I am changing my GEO system to allow for country codes and specific situations. It is a pain in the ass But I like coding, so it is also fun.

[MichaelCorfman]

In the first post in this thread I noted that on Friday, March 13th, Google acknowledged receipt of the counternotice I provided, and stated that unless the complainant provided proof they filed legal action against me within 10 business days, they would reinstate the content in question.

Exactly two weeks (10 business days later), on March 27th, I received the following email from Google letting me know the content has been reinstated:

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

Pursuant to your counter notice, we have reinstated the following URLs:

https://www.igamingaffiliateprograms.com/affiliate-program/multibrand-affiliates/

Regards,

The Google Team

For more information about our content removal process, see g.co/legal.

Michael

[Vinc King]

The counter notice usually works, and the team is quick to respond (from my experience).

I was also dealing with a lot of DMCA notices on my network and discovered this official Google resource that not many people know about:
transparencyreport.google.com

It shows you exactly what actions Google took against your sites. This helps you to see what is actually harming your site.

I built a tool that detects and triggers a counter-notice. If anyone is interested, I have been working on it with 30+ sites and have had no problems so far.

[Mattbar]

Never had google actually remove content but we did once get a request against us by someone who claimed we had cloned their site. In reality they had paid a third-party to build a site for them who had cloned our site. We might not have noticed for a while had they not submitted a request against us. That ended up with them having egg on their face and likely wasting a lot of money.

Funnily enough I did get a spurious google copyright notice today, did you jinx me Michael

This thread has been really helpful in responding to that complaint quickly.

[MMM]

Hi,

anyone else started getting those?

I got 3 the last few days and really ridiculous ones as if coming from Playtech and such. the pages the complaint is about doesn't have anything, there is no even an image there, not to mention something that could be copyright related.

any suggestion how to deal with those besides filing an appeal?

thank you

[iso2009]

Fill out the appeal and wait.
In my case, the reports were coming from a competitor using a fake account, and around 30 pages got deindexed. Then later I received another DMCA, this time from a real company acting on behalf of a brand I was actually promoting on those pages.

What I did was submit the appeal and also contact the company I was promoting to explain what was happening. They then got in touch with the company that had filed the DMCA on their behalf, and my domain was whitelisted. After that, no more DMCA complaints were sent.

Honestly, Google's DMCA system is abused like crazy - both by scammers and by real companies. A lot of these so-called "watchdogs" just sign a contract and then need to show they are doing something, so they start reporting a bunch of URLs in bulk. That often means legit sites get hit together with the actual infringing ones. To be fair, not all of them work like that. The better ones do have humans checking pages manually. But some are clearly just scraping search results and firing off bulk complaints.

It really reminds me of the Inquisition - same mindset, same methods.

And no, you can't really talk to Google about it. They don't care. On top of that, people can even hire blackhat services to abuse the system, so the amount of fraud in Google's DMCA process is way worse than most people think. The whole setup creates an insane amount of risk.

If you move fast, getting back into the search results usually takes around 20-25 days.

[dannyx]

I also received an email from Google today about the removal of some of my pages from their index. I checked the keywords and found that 80% of the competition had already been removed. Interestingly, even the owner of the bookmaker whose keywords were reported was removed.

This is the first time I've received such a message from Google. I'm wondering what to do. I received this email today, and these pages haven't been removed yet, so I think it's best to wait for the removal and then respond. Maybe they won't remove them? I don't know.

Of course, everything written in the report is a lie; it even said I'd copied the entire website.

[allfreechips]

I got a few of these today, are they seriously claiming I cany use a real description including their software used on a casino I promote?

Details of Original Claim
This is included to help you better understand and respond to the claim against you.

Date of claim: Apr 13, 2026

Description of claim: It has come to our attention that multiple pages on your platform are reproducing protected material owned by TVBet Platform without authorization. TVBet is the leading provider of live-games, known for its technologically advanced and innovative gaming content, all of which is protected under copyright law. The unauthorized use of this proprietary content on your platform constitutes a violation of our intellectual property rights. We hereby request the immediate removal of all infringing material and any related copies hosted on your platform. Failure to comply with this request may result in further legal action to protect our rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and applicable copyright laws. We expect prompt confirmation of the removal to ensure compliance. the page in question https://www.allfreechips.com/casinos/slot-madness

[universal4]

This is starting to sound more an more like someone is scraping millions of sites looking specifically for specified data to use in order to file the claims. (sounds very similar to the very old to the claims a certain set of print publications used many years ago against affiliates)

Wonder if there isn't a single or small number of law firms (or some other firm claiming a professional service) behind convincing a handful of developers and site or brand owners to file the claims.

Rick
Universal4

[allfreechips]

I did not notice this thread, and ill be following Michael's method as well.

[artem10x]

I’ve had something similar before. In my case the content came back, but the bigger job was fixing the page so it was less likely to get flagged again.

[Holly]

We have also received a fraudulent DMCA complaint. The claimant didn’t provide any URLs and simply alleged that the content was copied, which is clearly unreasonable. Additionally, several of our partners have recently started experiencing similar issues with fake DMCA complaints.