Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
The particular page cannot be indexed by Google
Hello, Smart People!
On-Page Optimization | | Viktoriia1805
We need help solving the problem with Google indexing.
All pages of our website are crawled and indexed. All pages, including those mentioned, meet Google requirements and can be indexed. However, only this page is still not indexed.
Robots.txt is not blocking it.
We do not have a tag "nofollow"
We have it in the sitemap file.
We have internal links for this page from indexed pages.
We requested indexing many times, and it is still grey.
The page was established one year ago.
We are open to any suggestions or guidance you may have. What else can we do to expedite the indexing process?1 -
Filter By Category bad for seo?
Hello Everyone! I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it. BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
On-Page Optimization | | Safxmed
Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page (ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories. So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest. Please advise me on this. Thank You0 -
Does Google Understand H2 As Subtitle?
I use some HTML 5 tags on my custom template. I implement <header class="entry-header-outer"> Flavour & Chidinma – 40 Yrs 40 Yrs by Flavour & Chidinma </header> html code. h1 tag serves as the title, while h2 tag servers as the subtitle of the post. Take a look at it here: https://xclusiveloaded.com/flavour-chidinma-40-yrs/ I want to know if it's ok or should I remove the h2 tag. Guys, what is your thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Kingsmart4 -
How does Google handle read more tags in Wordpress
Hi Everyone I am wondering how Google handles the read more tag in Wordpress. I pasted the link to a blog post on Google and found nothing (domain.com/post#readmore). Then I paste the version without #readmore (domain.com/post) and found that Google indexed the page but with the option to click "read more" to read it. The full blog post is not in their index, just the version asking you to read more. Is this because Google hasn't gotten to it or is Google ignoring it. I am not sure but ideally I rather have the full blog post indexed, not the read more version. I am curious to whether this will cause duplicate content issues. What are your experience with this and is it advisable to use an alternate method for read more. Maybe with a Wordpress plugin. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | gaben0 -
Any idea how Google is doing this? Is it schematic? http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/google-adds-full-restaurant-menus-to-its-search-results-pages/
Google is now showing menus on select searches. Any idea how they are getting this information? I would like to make sure my clients get visibility this way.
On-Page Optimization | | Ron_McCabe0 -
Duplicate Content for Men's and Women's Version of Site
So, we're a service where you can book different hairdressing services from a number of different salons (site being worked on). We're doing both a male and female version of the site on the same domain which users are can select between on the homepage. The differences are largely cosmetic (allowing the designers to be more creative and have a bit of fun and to also have dedicated male grooming landing pages), but I was wondering about duplicate pages. While most of the pages on each version of the site will be unique (i.e. [male service] in [location] vs [female service] in [location] with the female taking precedent when there are duplicates), what should we do about the likes of the "About" page? Pages like this would both be unique in wording but essentially offer the same information and does it make sense to to index two different "About" pages, even if the titles vary? My question is whether, for these duplicate pages, you would set the more popular one as the preferred version canonically, leave them both to be indexed or noindex the lesser version entirely? Hope this makes sense, thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | LeahHutcheon0 -
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 -
My Domain Name - short vs relevant
I'm creating a website for my new web design company in Vancouver. I'm looking to target such keywords as "Web Design Vancouver", etc. I have another company with a hyphenated domain name which is terrible when I'm on the phone and my client asks me for my domain (hard to say, always spelling it out). Also I wanted to have a good snappy name for my new business so I found a 6 letter .com and matching .ca for my company. My question is: is it best to use a short domain name or is it better have my keywords in the domain name? eg. xyz.com vs xyzvancouverwebdesign.com Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | VebianWebandMobileDevelopment0