The company said it has seen copyright infringement proliferate on the Web, resulting in a continuing rise in the volume of requests from rights holders to take down infringing material. The growing scope of the problem made it necessary for the company to make changes to its copyright policies, which will be rolled out over the next few months, Google said.

“We respond expeditiously to requests to remove such content from our services and have been improving our procedures over time,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, wrote in a blog post Thursday. “But as the Web grows, and the number of requests grows with it, we are working to develop new ways to better address the underlying problem.”

The federal government has stepped up its own efforts to clamp down on websites that offer pirated music, movies and other content — a campaign that recently involved shutting down 82 websites that offer counterfeit goods and illicit music and movie content.

Meanwhile, Hollywood studios, record labels and others in the entertainment industry are asking for more action to eradicate websites that illegally offer American movies, music and TV shows for free.

Google said its changes were developed within the company and are not the result of any recent government action.

The entertainment industry has increasingly complained about copyright infringers profiting by placing Google ads on their sites. In response, Google said it is going to proactively reach out to content rights holders to identify these illegitimate sites and, when appropriate, block them from using its popular AdSense product, which places ads on sites across the Web.

The search company said it will act on copyright take-down requests within 24 hours and, in some cases, even less time. Google’s Web search and blogger products receive a significant volume of take-down requests, and the company said it plans to roll out a tool that will make it easy and efficient for copyright owners to send their requests over the Web for these two products.

Google also said it will improve its autocomplete feature so it does not display terms that lead people to illicit content, as well as make it easier for users to find legitimate Web content with its search product.

On Capitol Hill, a bill that targets rogue websites passed unanimously in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month. To combat sites that offer pirated content, the bill lets the government take down Web addresses of sites that violate copyright infringement laws.