But other issues are more complicated; if a search engine links to a blog post that is essentially just a pointer to a RapidShare download, must the search engine remove that link?

How far removed must the search engine be?

Many search engines check for instances of spamdexing and will remove suspect pages from their indexes.

The most popular search engine, Google removed stop words such as "the" and "a" from its indexes for several years, but then re-introduced them, making certain types of precise search possible again.

It can also demand that search engines remove "paid-for" links to problematic advertising.

Some search engines may also penalise your website or even remove it from the listings if too many back links are added in one day.

Sopa also requires search engines to remove foreign infringing sites from their results, a provision absent in Pipa.

Other search engines remove some of the most common words-including lexical words, such as "want"-from query in order to improve performance.

Fitbit responded to criticism by making all such data private by default and requesting that search engines remove indexed user profile pages from their databases.

And search engines quickly remove them from the listings.