Swear Filter - SERP Impact
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My forum currently has a swear filter in place. While I personally think in most cases there's better alternatives to swearing, the general consensus is that it should be removed, and I've no problem with that in principal, however my concern is that Google may penalise the site in some way if this is done.
I've searched around a fair bit and haven't found any solid info on this so hoping someone on here may know the answer.
The question - Can repeated swear words effect rankings or prevent a website displaying in Google if safesearch is on?
Thanks as always.
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Cheers Keri
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Your best bet there might be to find someone you know who works in IT at a company that's really picky about what their employees see.
The problem I've run into is (I believe) a filter on a keyword in the URL for my site that won't let people at Vandenberg Air Force Base go to strikemodels.com. The site is about model warships battling each other, not about people modeling, but I'm pretty sure it's keying on the word model in the URL. Other sites from that host can be viewed from the base, and other sites with the same WP/Thesis framework can also be viewed.
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One thing I've only just considered:
What about people who browse at work. Do many work filters block out sites with profanity?
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Thanks William, that's great.
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If the text and content within the page is extremely offensive with excessive cursing it wouldn't even rank due to no one is going to search all those curses.
But Google will not penalize you or filter it out with the safe search. The default settings on Google allows swearing and unless you have highly offensive or object-able content on the page, I don't see why Google will not show the page.
I've operated forums before and the only thing I filter are racial slurs. I wouldn't allow too much swearing on the forums as well as it creates sort of a barrier from old to new registrants.
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