Despite torrent sites like Kickass Torrents (KAT) and Torrentz being taken down, passionate torrent-ers have taken upon themselves to turn to other sites (or even create one) to continue the torrenting lifestyle. One such site that has enjoyed an increase in traffic in the recent is the site 1337x.to, which had its design revamped after Google banned its homepage.
According to YIBADA, 1337x.to has been around since 2007 and is familiar to people who search for torrents on a regular basis. The site also boasts of an active community and fanbase. Even if its major sources like KAT and Torrentz have been shut down, the site has still been able to receive increased traffic.
1337x.to, however, still remains somewhat a bit "hidden," limiting chances of getting a higher traffic. People won't be able to search for the site that easily because Google Search was given a takedown notice to the because of its list of popular torrents in the homepage.
As a result, programmers behind 1337x.to resorted to redesigning the homepage with a big search bar that comes along with categories such as movies, television, games, music, applications, anime, documentaries and more. Unlike before, the site does not feature any torrents on the homepage anymore.
"Due to our old index being blocked by search engines new users were having issues finding website," the homepage greeting reads. "We developed new index page that contains only search so we don't get blocked by search engines in the future."
Torrent Freak also reported that the developers also had the front end and back end code revamped for 1337x.to in order to address numerous bugs and issues that came along with the previous design. They also plan to add a new forum section as well before the year ends.
Here's also a list of alternate torrent sites:
