VIZ Media has sent the fourth largest number of URL delisting requests based on copyright to Google, with over 200 million requests since Google began tracking requests six years ago.  URL delisting requests are requests to remove specific pages from Google search results based on copyright; in this case, Viz is undoubtedly asking Google to remove pages that contain pirated anime or manga material from its search results.  The requests are tabulated and reported by Google, thanks to ANN for the coverage.

The huge scale of the operation Viz is running to protect its copyrights is staggering; an average of over 94,000 URL takedown requests every single day for the past six years, with recent years running well above that number.   Most of the requests are sent to Google via third party service company Remove Your Media LLC.

We can speak to improving results due to Viz’s efforts; we were recently researching a number of Viz manga titles for our Manga Week coverage and noticed that contrary to what we’d seen in the past, when pirate sites were the most likely first choice at the top of Google’s search results pages for manga titles, Viz pages were usually at the top of the searches we made over the past week.