Will Having Adult-Themed Topics On A Site Hurt Rankings?

[Planet13]

Imagine that you had a site that catered to various health-related issues.

Would it harm your google rankings if you had a section devoted to the treatment of a <sex-related condition>?

This topic is very relevant to the website (it is there main area of specialty). But they also deal with other areas as well.

would having the above mentioned topic on the same site harm their overall rankings for other topics?

The only other discussion I could find on WebmasterWorld about this was here:

[webmasterworld.com...]
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[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:46 am (utc) on Aug 30, 2013]
[edit reason] made example less specific [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

Planet13 - I think the other WebmasterWorld discussion you cite answers your question....

tedster posted...

The obvious repercussion you could run into (and rightly, I would add) is Safe Search. For that reason, you might want to put any borderline adult materials into their own directory and make it easier for search engines to isolate what to filter.

No guarantees that will work, of course, but it would be a start.

If the topic is the area the website specializes in, I assume it can't be isolated to its own directory or subdomain, and that the entire site is likely to be affected by SafeSearch filtering.

That said, it's also likely that searchers looking for adult-related terms may know to have SafeSearch disabled.

[JD_Toims]

...put any borderline adult materials into their own directory and make it easier for search engines to isolate what to filter.

As tedster said, no guarantees, but I think I'd go as far as putting anything "adult related" on it's own subdomain rather than in just a directory.

[Planet13]

Thank you both, Robert Charlton and JD_Tomis:

"...but I think I'd go as far as putting anything "adult related" on it's own subdomain rather than in just a directory."

Yikes. That is going to be difficult because the adult related practice is about 30% of their focus, and would definitely need to be mentioned - if not highlighted and featured - on their home page.

~~~

I have to admit that I am unfamiliar with safe search, so I will have to read up on it. Is it something that is enabled by default?

Is there a large percentage of people using it?

Maybe if tripping the safe search filter is the ONLY ranking concern, it would still be worthwhile to keep the adult-related content on the same site / same root domain?
~~~~~

I would have thought back in the old days it would have been a good idea to have two sites - or a main site and a subdomain; one geared toward the adult-related practice, the other geared toward the other areas of practice.

However, I don't know how effective it would be today considering that:

- They don't have many inbound links at all
- Many people find their site search for them by their first and last name (because they saw their name in a print magazine / newspaper article).

I would think that in today's google, consolidating whatever "authority" they have in one site / one domain would be the best thing, right?

[atlrus]

Other than being caught by adult filters (not just google's), there is no disadvantage of "adult" content. I have a website which is not related to anything remotely adult in general, but it has a few articles about adult content. No decrease in ranking, the "adult" pages actually bring unbelievable google traffic :)

[Planet13]

"...the "adult" pages actually bring unbelievable google traffic :)"

That is good to hear!

[diberry]

I would have thought back in the old days it would have been a good idea to have two sites - or a main site and a subdomain; one geared toward the adult-related practice, the other geared toward the other areas of practice.

Actually, this might be smart. The domains could even look identical to visitors, with the only change being in the URL bar when they visit certain pages. (Google doesn't frown on that, do they? I mean, it is something you're doing for engines rather than visitors, but it's about categorizing content, not spamming or manipulating rankings or anything nefarious.)