![]() There’s no communication from Google about this, like a message in GSC (at least that I know of). ![]() If this happens, then your pages won’t appear like they normally would for certain queries leading to your site. For others, it might be turned on at a higher level, like a school administrator, IT department, or even a parent managing a child’s computer. It’s an option in your search preferences, so some people have to manually turn it on. When a site trips the SafeSearch filter, Google will filter some (or all) of your pages for users that have SafeSearch active (again, across images, video, and websites). Tripping The SafeSearch Filter – What Can Happen? That’s also important to understand in case you run into trouble, like if your site is incorrectly being filtered.Īn older Google help document I surfaced, which is now removed, explains that SafeSearch looks at “keywords, links, and images” to determine what should be filtered. Also, there’s a SafeSearch team at Google that is focused on the feature. More about that soon, but I wanted to make sure you understood that both text and images are taken into account. SafeSearch is undoubtedly much more sophisticated now and Google has explained it does use machine learning to detect explicit content that should be filtered. Since the first iteration of SafeSearch was in about 2000, Google didn’t have machine learning algorithms to help identify pornographic images. In that interview, Matt explained that Google initially used text to understand what should be filtered. He explained more about this during a recent interview with Barry Schwartz (at 12:08 in the video). Images and Text, Not Just Explicit PhotosĪ lot of people don’t know this, but Matt Cutts was tasked with creating the first version of SafeSearch. These are all important questions and I’ll be covering a number of these topics in this post. And if you do trip the filter, how do you know you are being filtered? And what about if you are incorrectly being filtered? Can you reach out to Google to let them know that’s happening? For example, is SafeSearch just impacting certain areas of the site or the entire site? It depends on your setup, your content, and how far your content crosses the line.Īlso, while helping companies deal with SafeSearch filtering, I’ve received many questions about how to test content to see how close it is to tripping the SafeSearch filter. That’s because if you trip the filter, traffic could drop to various degrees depending on how the filter is applied. This is why it’s a smart idea for publishers to become as knowledgeable as possible about Google’s SafeSearch feature, how it works, how to test if you’re being actively filtered, and how to test new content to future-proof your site. ![]() ![]() When that happens, those urls and images are filtered out of the search results yielding lower traffic levels from Google.Īnd to clarify, filtering applies to images, videos, and websites, so it’s not just about filtering in the standard organic results. ![]() And sometimes those articles provide content and images that trip the SafeSearch filter. Instead, the sites are publishers that write about a range of topics within their niche. Site content was being filtered for users with SafeSearch active, which was impacting the visibility of content in the SERPs and subsequent traffic to the site.īut these weren’t porn sites being filtered… far from it actually. I’ve worked on several cases recently where SafeSearch came into play. That’s especially the case for sites that walk a fine line between providing non-explicit and explicit content (at least according to Google’s algorithms). For example, understanding how SafeSearch works, what filtering looks like in action, and how it can impact traffic from Google organic search. For many site owners and SEOs, SafeSearch can be a confusing topic. ![]()
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