Web Sites Aim to Join Protests While Keeping Their Mojo

In joining the protests against antipiracy legislation by blacking out some content or popping up political messages, some commercial Web sites were putting advertising revenue at risk. But they had to worry about another possible consequence too: hurting their ranks in search results.

If search engines like Google scanned the sites and found pages missing or moved, it could take a while for them to re-establish their presence in search rankings. So the sites needed to use some tricks to protect their standings. Pierre Far, a Google employee who advises site owners, recently published a post on Google Plus offering tips on how to handle the situation.