Could Profanity Decrease Google Trust in a Website?
-
Could profanity such as swear words or cursing decrease the trust Google has in a website? For example, abusive comments... etc? I'm not talking about the SafeSearch filter, I'm talking about the overall trust of the website.
Your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
-
I just dusted off my memory banks (the hardware ones in my brain) and if I am not mistaken (don't know if it still there) there were a paragraph in the Google terms of use that stated that explicit content has to be at least 3 clicks away from the front-page. But on the other hand I just did a quick search on porn and none of them live up to that condition so it doesn't seem like that rule is being enforced if it was ever there. It is interesting but I must admit I have never had a reason to research the subject since I have never had a client that had explicit content.
-
2 or 3 years ago I remember seeing an article which suggested that there were certain "stop words" that would reduce the chance of a site rankinghighlyl but I have never seen any further articles or any empirical evidence and none of the sites I have worked on have profanities on them.
As suggested below there are some sites with "rude" content that still manage to get ranked well despite profanities but perhaps Google takes into account whether it is appropriate for the category of site.
-
It is interesting and no-one actually has a definitive answer on this. A best guess would say to me that too much profanity takes away from real useful content that is related to the audience. That is the way I would see it. For that, I would say ease back on the swearing as, lets be honest, there is no need for it - unless it is a site all about swearing!
Andy
-
I doubt it but have no real proof.. except porn sites and so on tend to rank very high
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
-
Why is my website not ranking for it's brand name in SERPs but has been indexed by Google?
The website https://christchurch.crowneplaza.com has been live for a couple of months but is not being found in Google search results - even when searching for it's own brand name 'crowne plaza christchurch.' Google has indexed the site - but we are still not showing - https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fchristchurch.crowneplaza.com&rlz=1C1NHXL_enNZ735NZ735&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i58j69i59l2j69i65.896j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Any ideas as to why? I think it may be because their are two versions of the site, http and https, both with their own rel=canonical tags. Could this be the cause? Any help much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Timmy30 -
What Google algorithm hit my website? Graph attached.
Please check the below URLs and let me know which algorithm hit my website. I collect the data from 3 different tools. http://i.imgur.com/ImljFmO.png http://i.imgur.com/aWxqOdj.png http://i.imgur.com/PqhhruN.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Why is our website not generating organic traffic?
Our website is struggling to generate organic traffic over the past few months and we're lost as to why. It's a relatively new site. It's mobile friendly, all products have meta descriptions and product images have alt tags. Content is added regularly. Site speed could be better and alt tags need to be added to images on the blog but other than that we're stumped. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Johnny_AppleSeed0 -
Merging websites
My company (A) is about the merge with another company (B). The long-term plan is not to keep their brand or website. In terms of the merge process, I have been doing a bit of research and this is how I'm thinking about doing it so far., which is open minded about changing... On the homepage of company B, do a 302 redirect to an information page on the same website which details the merger. This will only be for a year. After a year has passed, do a 301 redirect to the homepage of company A Do 301 redirects from all other pages to similar pages on company A. For pages that don't correspond, either do a 302 to the 'merger detail page', or do a 301 to the homepage of company A. Bring across any content that is effective at driving traffic. Contact all high authority websites that have links to company B and request for them to be updated. Any tips/corrections appreciated. Stu
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stuart260 -
Google penalty or what???
Hi, we have a blog site xxxxxxxxxxx.es, that yesterday dissapear from google ranks all of a sudden it only appears if you write xxxxxxxxx.es I have checked gogle webmaster tools and there are no manual actions, no messages. Also, we don't have much links pointing to this site. Webmaster tools show only 319 links. We don't understand what have happenned. Never see something similar. What do you think? Any help would be appreciated. How do you proceed in this cases? It doesn't seem to be a link problem. How do you know what kind of penalty do you have? Thank you. Update: Hi, the domain is www.crearcorreoelectronico.es I have check the majestic seo, ose, and wmt and get the links. We have some links that are not good, but are automatic ones, that some portals generate. Maybe is something related with the content. I don't know Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite1 -
How to link my websites with each other - to avoid google penalities and get some value
I have good high DA PA websites hosted on same IP, added in same google analytics and GWT account. So i think google knows that owner is the same. How should we link them with each other to get some value? Put nofollow? With what anchor (Money keyword or domain name)? But whats the point? We cannot make natural link building profile with our own website nofollow links, i assume they will not count. What can you suggest? Maybe it is better not to link at all?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bele0 -
My website keywords have been almost completely taken out of indexing in Google since 04/26/11 and I cannot determine why, anyone know?
I had 12 to 15 1st page Google rankings in the iPhone, iPad, app review vertical. As of 04/26/11 I have lost all rankings, traffic has gone from 1,000 to 1,200 a day to 150 to 350 a day. I was using a plugin for auto press releases, but have removed this and deleted the urls. I also have changed themes and hosting over the last 3 weeks. I have been trying to get SEO help, but cannot seem to get anyone to help me. thank you Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | crazymikesapps1 -
Website Ranking Issue
Hey All My question is specfic to a particular website. The category of the website is Kitchen Appliances. The keyword is extremely competitive. The website I am currently optimizing has loads of products and many pages as well. I am constantly building links from industry specific websites for the website as well as composing articles and leading the users back to the website with keyword rich anchor text. I have been doing this for around 3 months and I do not see the website in the first 30 pages of the SERP (for the keyword kitchen appliances - the site is a page rank 2 BTW). No bugs reported as well in Webmaster tools. My next step is to add these articles to the website (www.example.com/KitchenAppliances ) with keyword rich metatags as well as content with internal links to my product pages. I also plan on sending traffic to these pages to build the pages link popularity. Do you think I can expect better results for the article pages than my original website product pages or do you think I should continue with the link building activity I was performing originally for the website. regards Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO5Team2