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Our site receives DMCA removal requests from Google and our pages being removed from Google. Our content is user generated (adult site). We want to remove the video but not the page itself (we can display related videos on the page) and we want to stay in Google's index.

I've seen similar pattern on some trusted porn sites like pornhub. See example: pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1633706543 (adult content warning)

All their removed pages are in index: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=site%3Apornhub.com+%22Video+has+been+removed+at+the+request+of+the+copyright+owner.%22

Google is not removing their page from it's index, see this: https://transparencyreport.google.com/copyright/request/8215330

URLs requested to be delisted: 30 URLs not delisted: 30

and this: https://www.google.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pornhub.com%2Fview_video.php%3Fviewkey%3D1633706543

When I tried to send a counter-notice, Google says:

Please note: If the content on the page was infringing at the time the original removal request arrived, your counter notice is not legally valid. Do not submit a counter notice if there was illegal content, even if it's now been removed.

How should we react on such removal requests to stay in index?

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Whenever a website allows users to post content in a largely uncontrolled way, copyright will be infringed and DCMA notices issued. This is just a given and why we discourage sites to be so open.

As far as the porn sites you refer to, the content posted is posted by the content owner as a marketing ploy/strategy. They would hardly file a DCMA complaint on a site where they, themselves, have posted their own content.

My advice to you would be to either police your site strictly or shut it down. As well, because I presume that the video is the primary content of the page, I would recommend you remove the page and not just the content. These pages would likely be delisted anyway for a variety of reasons such as thin content.

As a matter of business, sites that allow users to post porn openly tend to fail. It is a matter of time.

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  • But pornhub is user generated and doing totally fine (not only content owners upload videos there but regular users also), please check links I provided, they just remove the video, the page stays in index. Thin content in porn niche?
    – DoctorP
    Oct 6, 2019 at 16:01
  • Think of the revenue pornhub helps bring in. Google is going to treat them different
    – Joe Swindell
    Oct 7, 2019 at 5:11
  • Joe Swindell, what kind of revenue? Porn is prohibited in adwords.
    – DoctorP
    Oct 7, 2019 at 9:35

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