Policy Violations

LInks to Adult sites

[dolcevita]

I just need opinion here from you guys.

Yesterday i've received Warning for Policy Violations remark as "Links to Adult sites".

I believe that it have nothing to do with policy violations. And here is why.

I have website where people can lookup any IP address of url from the website for location information (country, city etc...). Once url is entered, then it is saved into database and it is generated as new page mywebsitedotcom/whatever=urlinquestion


Now Adsense team (it is probably bot) say that there is link to adult site while there is nothing else than word mdotEXAMPLEdotcom and on the page are displayed location information for this url without any link to this url.

Can someone explain of showing url on your page containing word sex without any excpliti content and any link to site in question is violation of policy.

If not can someone please provide me email from google adsense team where i can contact them and explain about this issue and ask for explanation.

btw
In mean time i've blocked through php any possibility for the visitors
to search for any website containt word sex in url

[edited by: martinibuster at 2:22 am (utc) on Sep 1, 2014]
[edit reason] Examplified URL. [/edit]

[not2easy]

I think I would just remove that entry from my database, remove the page for it and not be concerned further. They have been known to have false-positives, but if the content isn't there you eliminate that possibility. As you mention, you have taken steps to avoid it in the future, it seems sensible to clean up reason you had to take those steps.

[eek2121]

This is why you have to watch out when you have user generated content. BTW 'sex' isn't the only word you need to watch out for.

[dolcevita]

Thanks for response.

I've blocked page in question and i've also take steps to block most common sexual terms.

Next time i will probably chose form with get method instead of post method and that way there will be not generated new pages.

I'm still a bit surprised but there is probably not any other way than try to block using form by looking domain names which have common sexual terms in its name.

[piatkow]

Google has had its underwear in a twist over place names like Essex or Sussex in the past and even WMT can't cope with a certain industrial town in north Lincolnshire.

[dolcevita]

Just wonder of words such as gay, lesbian, erotic, ass also belong in sexual terms? I've included these words in my block list but not sure of these words really belong there.

It is bit confusing here to know what are in G opinion words that belong to sexual and what not.

[graeme_p]

Erotic definitely. I doubt the others are per se. Phrases including those words may be another matter.

[dolcevita]

Thanks for reply. Thus if ass do not belong to sexual terms then probably also terms as penis, vagina, breast does not belong there too?

It is really difficult for myself and probably other to decide what belong by sexual and what not.

[graeme_p]

I would be more careful about the others, especially the first two. Ass is milder and ambiguous.

The thing is that Google is using an algo we do not know to identify sites, so we do not know for certain what would trigger it. It will almost certainly use more than a simple block list of words, and it will not block words that are commonly used outside the context of sexually explicit material (so gay will be OK, vagina maybe, c*** definitely not). Certain combinations of words that are themselves OK may trigger it.

[icedowl]

Don't take any chances. I'd block all those words, probably more.

Once I used the word "swinger" and ads would not appear on the page. My usage of the word had nothing to do with people or anything living. I changed the word to a synonym and all has been okay with that page ever since.

[keyplyr]

I have an etymology page accounting the origins of some types of New Orleans music. All the buzz words listed above are present. That page has been online for 15 years and displays 3 Adsense units. I have never had a problem.

[netmeg]

It is really difficult for myself and probably other to decide what belong by sexual and what not.

Some sites just aren't as compatible with AdSense as others, since Google doesn't release a list of objectionable words. Anything where you don't have tight control over what kind of URL is generated (or comments moderated, in the case of UGC) could potentially be problematic.

[graeme_p]

@icedowl, the problem with "swinger" is that I suspect the sexual connotation is probably the commonest use on the internet, and Google's algorithm will use statistics, not common sense.

ON the other hand, words like "gay" and even "sexual" are constantly used in entirely inoffensive contexts on very mainstream sites.

My guess in dolcevita's case is that the page in question is showing the url of a site that contains sexually explicit content, and Google is treating the plain text url as a link. What is the content on that URL? If not, Google's algo just got it wrong.

All that said, @netmeg is right, this site is just not a good fit for Adsense. You may be OK with a UGC site on which all content is promptly moderated, but not with something like this.

[icedowl]

graeme_p, I agree completely. "Swinger" simply shows how overly sensitive the algorithm is and that it does not take any of the surrounding words into consideration to get the actual meaning of the phrase being used. It sure makes you think twice about how you write your content.