Does 'XXX' in Domain get filtered by Google
-
I have a friend that has xxx in there domain and they are a religious based sex/porn addiction company but they don't show up for the queries that they are optimized against. They have a 12+ year old domain, all good health signs in quality links and press from trusted companies. Google sends them adult traffic, mostly 'trolls' and not the users they are looking for.
Has anyone experienced domain word filtering and have a work around or solution? I posted in the Google Webmaster help forums and that community seems a little 'high on their horses' and are trying to hard to be cool. I am not too religious and don't necessarily support the views of the website but just trying to help a friend of a friend with a topic that I have never encountered.
here is the url: xxxchurch.com
Thanks,
Brian
-
Hmmm... This is a hard one. (Oh man, did not mean to make the intentional sex referrence)
Yes, Google has made changes in it's algorithm in the past year that makes porn harder to search for on the Internet. These changes don't filter the porn per se - except when "Safe search" is set to on - but it does mean that you must be much more specific in your search queries to find what you are looking for. For example, the query "boobs" generally returns almost no porn in Google, but the query "boobs porn" will.
If I were building an algorythm to separate porn sites from non, a large amount of XXX in the incoming anchor text, or in the URL, would probably trigger it.
Oh the other hand, I'm inclined to agree with George - seems like there's something more going on here. The backlink profile isn't terrible.... but there's definitely a footprint of comment spam in there. I won't link directly, but some of the suspect, off-topic links I found include:
http://www.takarat.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=750&page=3
http://www.omyogapages.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43&page=7
http://www.atthepicketfence.com/2011/09/behind-blog-with-savvy-southern-style.html
http://www.marypoppins-homesweethome.com/2011/07/what-is-it-with-us-girls-and-ikea.htmlThese are pretty terrible It's possible that there's 100's or 1000's more we're not seeing, and these are causing either a manual or algorithmic penalty.
My advice:
-
Check with Google Webmaster Tools for any messages - especially unnatural link warnings.
-
File a reconsideration request, even if you don't have any messages in GWT. Explain your concerns. Matt Cutts, the head of the Webspam team, helped write the original adult filter algorithms. He might take a special interest if you can get it to his attention.
But mostly, what you're looking for is verification, or not, of a penalty.
-
You may need to clean up the links. Do your best to remove any suspect links. Use the disavow tool as a last resort.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
-
I doubt there's a filter against xxx, but that doesn't mean there isn't something in the algos that checks for a spammy link profile more aggressively if the xxx is there.
I ran through the first 5 pages of links in Open Site Explorer, and their highest authority links mainly contain the branded keyword phrase "xxx church". Could use some diversity in anchor text. Just because Penguin hit for exact match anchor text for spammy links (from spammy sites and tactics), it doesn't mean you can't use "Check out this porn addiction recovery site if you're having issues with porn in your house." and link to the site with the underlined text.
There may be some more questions to ask. What are their link building efforts?
A number of pages from http://blog.internetsafety.com with incoming links no longer resolve (404 not found). There are lots of links that actually do look Penguin bait.
It could be link diversity. It could be low quality links. It could be tons of links coming from pages that are now resolving as 404s.
Sorry the news isn't great, but I really don't think it's the domain name that is the problem.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can Google read this code?
I'm working on some basic on-page SEO content for a website within my company and I need some guidance as far as 1. whether Google can read the small amount of existing text (not optimized) and if it isn't spiderable, then 2. what code should be there instead. Here is the site: https://www.le-velgear.com/store/catalog The text I'm referring to is toward the bottom of the page (isn't it always?) and says this: Designed for a Thriving Lifestyle The Le-Vel Gear store is an extension of the LV Life, the Thrive product line, and the world's largest health and wellness Movement, which you helped create. Living a life you deserve includes looking good while showing the world your pride in being a Thriver...Check out all the new and incredible gear and tools and take your Thriving lifestyle to the next level!!! When I "View Source," I cannot see the text, however, the text is highlight-able with my cursor and I can see it when I "Inspect Element" in a container that says Thanks in advance for any help!
On-Page Optimization | | lizzyr0 -
SEO for a Domain which contains Multiple individual sites
My website structure www.example.com (wordpress installation number 1)
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
www.example.com/forum/ (vbulletin installtion)
www.example.com/shop/ (wordpress installation number 2) Each of these individual pages contains a fresh wordpress/vbulletin installation with their individual admin control panel. Am i doing this website entirely wrong? Is my website considered as a single website or does Google classify it as 3 different websites? My Ranking page is, www.example.com, and by blog post is www.example.com/forum/blog. When i do a link within my blog entry to my main ranking page, does it count as external or internal link?0 -
How to get expanded sitelinks?
What are the best actions I can take to get our brand to show up on google with expanded site link? Is there a schema markup for this?
On-Page Optimization | | Syed_Raza0 -
Can't see why been marked 'Avoid Keyword Stuffing'
Hi SEOmoz! I'm a newbie, first post, here goes... Working my way through On-Page Report Cards. Noticed this page http://www.vintageheirloom.com/vintage-chanel/vintage-chanel-bags flagged with 'Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document'. Keyword is 'Vintage Chanel bags' and there is just one instance of it on this particular category page?? Any ideas? Any general pointers for me on www.vintageheirloom.com would also be much appreciated. Thanks SEOmozzers...
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Removing old URLs from Google
Hello, I am sure that this question has been asked many times, but I am still not sure what to do about the following: Our site's URL structure has changed a few times in the past few months. Recenty, we have changed our URLs to become more SEO friendly. However, Google has indexed the old URLs as well. To give an example: The following page in our website shows the following URLs in Google Webmaster Tools: Confúcio e Seus Ensinamentos /artigo/68_38/2/as_religioes_iv_confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos//aula/14_6132/vestibular/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos//aula/1_14_6132/vestibular/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos//aula/_14_6132/Vestibular/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos//aula/ensino/confucio_e_seus_ensinamentos/ The correct URL is the last one. What should I do about the other ones? Almost all the pages in our website have this problem. We have redirected the old URLs to the new ones, but is there anything else we should do? We were asking Google to remove them, but Google has informed us that it has reached the limit. Please advise us on waht we should do. We have removed the old sitemap with the old URLs. What else must we do? Thank you very much.
On-Page Optimization | | Tev0 -
Hyphens in Domain Name
I have a client who is a business broker. I have just begun working with them, and they are trying to determine the best domain name to use - they have several. business-broker-alabama.com vs businessbrokeralabama.com Which one of these has more value? I know that search engines have somewhat devalued keywords. The first one probably has a little more SEO value, but is going to be a drag in terms of marketing -- saying "business hyphen broker hyphen alabama" is going to get old for them. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | csmithal0 -
Inner page rank higher than domain
Hey there, Today my site received it's first Google pagerank and noticed something strange. My domain got a PR of 2 whilst most of the other inner pages got PR1, so far so good. But then one particular inner page which is just 2 weeks old and has zero backlinks has PR 3. I'm not one to fixate on PR but this just struck me as weird. What do you guys think?
On-Page Optimization | | barabis770 -
Changing page titles and google penalties?
I just recently learned that changing your page title earns you a google penalty. Unfortunately i learned this after playing around with my page titles a bit to get the most optimal page titles. Does anybody know how long this google penalty lasts? is it forever? or just temporary?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0