Google SafeSearch Over filtering?

• Apr. 10, 2003

Google’s SafeSearch feature, which is used to filter out adult websites, may be blocking out many other sites that it was not intended to.

 

As reported by Harvard University’s Berkman Center, Google’s SafeSearch is blocking thousands of WebPages, including pages from Apple Computer, IBM, the White House, the Library of Congress and the Washington Post. The filtering software checks the keywords and phrase, urls and Open Directory categories and automatically analyzes pages making an educated guess whether to include the page or not.

 

SafeSearch is intended to filter out adult and porn sites, but SafeSearch analyses the text on the page and uses a word filter to choose the pages that are to be blocked. Most likely when this article is indexed by Google, it will not appear in the Google SafeSearch due to the mentioning of adult website phrase. The Harvard researchers that originally reported on this case are also not included.

 

Many people that have children at home, or people that do not want adult websites being returned in their results, will have this feature turned on. Internet filters and Google’s SafeSearch are not 100% accurate, so when writing content for your site, it is important to keep in mind any possible keywords or phrases that will cause your site to be excluded when it shouldn’t be.

 

Gerard Manning

Searchengineposition.com

Search Engine Positioning

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