Swearing and SEO

[NickGrogan]

Does anyone have any experience of the effect of swear words in titles and content on SEO / Google?

Website is targetted at B2B SME market, particularly owner/directors who are very angry at the time.

No kids, etc.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

I can only think of one example and you have to search the exact term for it to show up, and I doubt anyone would do that without already knowing what the site was. It's the 'thebest*************website' and is a well-known example of how fast a website can be optimized for speed. You're not going to find it unless you know what the missing words are.

Not sure if that answers your question but what I'm really saying is that if the swear word isn't in the search query you're not gaining anything by using it?

 

[DigitalSheppard]

While swearing shouldn’t have an effect on SEO, it would affect CTR.

If your audience is comfortable with it, then I say go nuts. A/B test and then determine if the choice of harsh language works. Also, monitor conversions from your content. Yes, a swear word in the title might encourage users to click through but I think there might be a problem associated with professionalism. Therefore, they might choose to use the services of a less sweary organisation.

 

[Happy Koala SEO Agency]

Greg Morrison did an experiment with swear words in the URL and he ranked his website number 1 just fine.

Its called Miami SEO B i t c h

 

[Birmingham]

it's all about context. google will recognise trends like when someone googles for academic search terms they tend not to like results with blasphemy, but when someone googles sports search terms they have very mixed feelings. you're taking a risk either way. do not split test it on a domain you value unless you want to risk the whole domain being tarnished with a history of rude words.

 

[fisicx]

Google is fine with ranking blasphemy. This thread is about swear words.

 

[Birmingham]

swear words are blasphemy. it's a synonym to some people. pretty obvious what i mean considering the context. but if you're going to be very picky about it let's call it profanity. let's not side-track any more now.

google is not fine with ranking it for topics where it has low user satisfaction levels, as already explained.

 

[SEO Lady]

I know someone whose fitness website accidentally ranks for the search term "fat d i ck /fat p e n i s" and the clicks to his 5 year old article still bring in thousands of disappointed porn seekers every year.

When I was in his GA account we were on a shared Skype call and I was doubled over with laughing when I saw his top performing page URLs...

I thought it was a golden opportunity to stick in an affiliate link to an adult website but obviously I was joking, there's no way he's going to link out to a Brazzers subscription. Ahahah, I'm still giggling, thanks for making me remember this.

He's still on page 1 oh my days .. "First of all let’s quickly disappoint the millions of Googlers who arrived at this page after searching for “fat penis”. It’s not that kind of article. Sorry."

 

[aarticod]

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

 

[lotuscontainer05]

Can swearing/cussing in web page/post content hurt SEO rankings? Not client perception, but actual ranking positions.