Why does even moderate Safe Search filter out innocent images?

[ianevans]

Okay, to recap...like many folks we suffered during the image massacre of July '06, losing several thousand original photo pages.

We were down to about 160ish...today we were up to 370 (yay!) but when moderate safesearch was turned on, the number went to zero.

Okay...

We have no adult images. Just our original entertainment news photos that we've taken at red carpets and press conferences.

So, while it looks like we're slowing crawling up (though several hotlinkers are in there despite hotlink protection) why the safesearch issue? We DON'T have ADULT images...how the heck is safesearch decided?

[thecoalman]

I don't have a specific answer for you but here's some image search oddities I've come across pertaining to one search I've been following for an image on my site. Hope it's relevant to the topic.

No filter: Image is result #7

Safe Filter: At one point this caused the image to drop 2-3 results. You would think if anything it would either be filtered, remain the same or move up.. Just checked it now for the first time in a few months and it has the same ranking. Not sure when that occurred.

Strict Filter: Image drops out of the rankings at least as far as the 55-72. However.... Result #67 is another image from the exact same site.... which really makes no sense.

This site and images have been static except for a few minor changes for the last 3 or 4 years.

[cabbie]

Check for adult sites linking to you.

[ianevans]

I'll have to take a look.

It seems crazy for Google to punish you for something that you can't control.

Just to illustrate the effects on traffic/revenue I went to Analytics to compare this Feb. 15/06 to '07 and our Google Images traffic was 48 times higher last year. Ouch!