Google bans blogger blog containing explicit content

Google bans ‘explicit’ images and videos from Blogger

Google starts penalizing blogger blogs which contain NSFW images and videos

Google has announced that it will start de-listing blogger blogs which share sexually explicit or NSFW content. Users of its free blogging platform called Blogger will stand to organic search engine traffic if Google de-lists their blogs for hosting  explicit or NSFW content.

Blogger is free blog-publishing service that allows multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries.  Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google servers at a subdomain of blogspot.com. A user can have up to 100 blogs per account. Earlier Google used to allow “images or videos that contain NSFW content” as long as the blogger warned its visitors it was hosting above 18+ content and the blog reader was above 18 year of age.

Now Google has updated its adult content policy, and as per the new policy any blog created before 23 March 2015 that contains sexually explicit or content will now automatically be made private i.e. Google wont index and make them available in Google Search.

“No content will be deleted, but private content can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog and the people who the owner has shared the blog with,” said Google.

Google has also said that the bloggers who have already hosted such content can choose to remove the explicit images in order to make it public again, or keep their blog private.

Google said it may however remove the blogs created after 23 March 2015.

As a corollary to above policy, Google has said it may however allow exceptions to certain blogs hosting NSFW content, if the content offers a “substantial public benefit.” Google cited artistic, educational, documentary or scientific reasons for exceptions.

Blogs that dont particularly contain explicit content but have still are adult in nature will be placed under ‘adult content’ warning by Google.

If you are hosting such blogs, you can export your blog as a .xml file or archive your blog’s text and images using Google Takeout so that you can move it to a paid host where Google’s writ does not rule.