The notion I always got is that google is as agnostic of content as possible by law & courts, torrents are not illegal per se.

Google could possibly get sued for blocking sites that aren't deemed illegal.

(yes we all know torrent sites are mostly illegal but they aren't seen that way legally)

Confusing replies. In different forums many webmasters have repeatedly been asking why Google doesn't index "my content-rich, SEO-clean, guidelines adhering, backlinked, socially acceptable etc." page. The universal answer has traditionally been that Google is under no obligation to index a page -- that G has complete freedom to include what it wants.

Generally, I'd support that google is free to chose what to include, but choses not to discriminate based on content. They'll move if required by law (Scientology's law suits etc), but not preemptively.
Guess they want to present the web as it is, so that you don't use another search engine for certain queries, but find your new house, your torrents and whatever it is you don't want to tell your closest friends about, at google.

I think Google believes in free speech and that it is a reason it does not block even the filthiest #*$! sites etc.

Two more cents . . . .

Google is not the Internet police. It's job is, and has always been, to return the most relevant result from it's index to the user. (World domination comments aside . . . . ) So the content of the site is really irrelevant.

Torrents are not illegal. The content uploaded to them, however, may or may not be. A similar scenario that just came up recently: a popular freelance site's entire provider database was scraped and placed on a European site, including details of all the provider's info without their permission. It was indeed indexed. Who's responsibility is it to control the content?

The hosting ISP.

Why doesn't google block Torrent sites from its search results?

1) Torrent searches are popular, therefore...
2) Google would loose market share in search (because Yahoo/MS would fill the gap).

To be blunt, it's a no-brainer! Also, whilst Google likes to patent its own ideas, it has never been overly concerned about the intellectual property rights of others.

Kaled.