Editor’s note: “Ask an SEO” is a weekly column by technical SEO expert Jenny Halasz. Come up with your hardest SEO question and fill out our form. You might see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
Can swearing/cussing in web page/post content hurt SEO rankings? Not client perception, but actual ranking positions. #AskAnSEO
— Big Red SEO – Omaha (@bigredseo) July 18, 2017
Today’s Ask an SEO question comes to us from Twitter via Big Red SEO – Omaha:
Can swearing/cussing in web page/post content hurt SEO rankings? Not client perception, but actual ranking positions. #AskAnSEO
This is a really interesting question, and one I was not able to find a definitive answer on.
Officially, Google takes no position on curse words in website content. Unofficially, I found many anecdotal instances of censorship.
It appears that the quantity/severity of swear words may have a couple of different impacts:
1. SafeSearch Filtering
If your content is deemed unsafe for an audience under 18, you may find that the site doesn’t appear when people search with SafeSearch on (it’s on by default).
Google officially says that this only applies to images, but I found several anecdotal reports of sites disappearing from SafeSearch that didn’t have any explicit images.
2. Rewritten Titles & Descriptions
If you use explicit words in your titles or meta descriptions, Google may choose to rewrite these.
Again, this isn’t an official position, but anecdotally true.
My Advice: Keep It Clean
Avoid using a lot of swear words or explicit content if it isn’t necessary to make your point or if you’re in an industry that’s not typically filtered in SafeSearch. If you’re in a filtered industry, keep the explicit words out of the titles and meta descriptions.
Don’t worry about profanity if you follow the previous two guidelines. But if you see a reduction in position, take the curse words out and re-measure. Then let the rest of the SEO industry know what you find out!
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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita
