Google presents YTS and 123movies as “Best Movie Websites” * TorrentFreak

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Google’s algorithms have made life much more convenient for many people, but sometimes they lead to particular results. When searching for the best movie websites, the search engine will suggest pirate sites including YTS and 123movies in the related searches. These and other not-so-legal sites also appear in one of Google’s “Best Movie Websites” lists.

To help hundreds of millions of people find what they’re looking for, Google has introduced some cool features over the years.

In addition to providing a list of web results, Google often displays related questions and popular topics, which should make it easier to find new content.

These features are based on algorithms that are not always aware of the complex nuances of today’s web. This is especially true when it comes to online media and entertainment.

Over the years, Google has been regularly criticized for indirectly making it easier to find pirated content. This message has not gone unnoticed by the company, which has implemented a wide variety of anti-piracy optimizations. He even went so far as to purposely remove The Pirate Bay from search results in the Netherlands.

Recommendations from hackers?

Despite Google’s best efforts, its algorithms can sometimes go off the rails. When we searched for the term “free movie website”, for example, the related search section had the search “best movie website”, highlighting several pirate sites.

As noted above, these top movie sites include the 123movies and Fmovies pirate streaming sites, as well as the YTS torrent site.

These results may differ by device, but we tested it in a relatively unused browser without being signed in to a Google Account, so this seems like a fairly general ‘recommendation’.

The work of algorithms

It’s easy to blame Google’s algorithms, but they’re just doing their job. The web is full of sites that provide overviews of the best free movie sites and many of those pirate sites.

Likewise, it seems plausible that many people who search for these terms are looking for pirated content, which tells algorithms that YTS, 123movies, and Fmovies are relevant results. And that’s true.

The only problem is that these sites aren’t exactly legal. Therefore, we expect these recommendations to disappear in the near future. The same thing happened after we pointed out that Google featured prominently in “best torrent sites”.

There is more…

To conclude, let’s mention that the list of “best movie sites” is not the only place where pirate sites and apps are featured.

When we go deeper into the rabbit hole, we also see reels for “free movie websites”, “free movie apps”, “best free movie download websites”, “websites to watch” and several other related queries.

Ironically, even when we search for “legal movie streaming sites” pirated alternatives are suggested via related searches.