By YNOT Staff

YNOT – Google continues to fiddle with its search algorithm and the way its pages display results. This week, the search giant admitted making significant changes in the way it handles images: henceforward, nothing remotely explicit will display in image results without active intervention by the user. Creative, determined users can tinker with their browser’s Google settings and stumble across ways to invoke the smut gods, if they like, but for everyone else, an even safer version of Google’s SafeSearch now offers the ability to “filter explicit results” and “report offensive images.”

We can’t wait to find out how many offensive-images reports Google receives from arch-conservative and religious groups.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google maintains it has no desire to censor search results, at least in countries that embrace free speech.

“We are not censoring any adult content and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them,” a Google spokesperson told CNET. “We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings now work the same way as in web search.”

Specific searching, though, is not as easy as the spokesperson made it sound. Search for an explicit term, and this warning will pop up:
[QUOTE]Google SafeSearch: Use SafeSearch menu to filter explicit results.[/QUOTE]
Finding the SafeSearch menu can be challenging for those who don’t know where to look. SafeSearch is “on” by default. Even when users turn SafeSearch off, Google returns less-than-explicit images.

There appears to be a workaround, however.
[QUOTE]One can simply type a description of whatever porn one wants into any search bar followed by the letters “XXX.” Results are instant and on-target. For example, if one is looking for adult content that includes a mainstream generic word like “toys,” simply enter the search term “toys XXX” and problem solved. The same search works for those who prefer other search engines, too. Try “Gay XXX,” “Shemales XXX,” or “Orgasms XXX” in virtually any search engine.[/QUOTE]
That advice is from ICM Registry, overseer of the dot-xxx domain space. Not surprisingly, the search terms used as examples coincide with names of adult websites in the dot-xxx space, so searching for those terms in the “web” section of Google returns those domain names as the first results. Searching Google images, however, brings up a pile of nastiness from all kinds of cyber-outposts.

“Of course, age-appropriate internet users can best and most quickly find adult content through ICM’s Search.xxx dedicated porn search engine without using the ‘XXX’ trick,” chief executive Stuart Lawley added without the slightest sheepishness.

“Our existing customers are already reporting increased traffic to their sites from Google as a result of the algorithm changes and the advice given by publications like ZDNET to append the XXX letters,” Lawley said. “Indeed, our own search engine has seen an almost 50-percent increase in traffic in the past 24 hours.

“We need to deliver peace of mind for internet users worldwide that the adult content they have come to enjoy will forever be searchable and available,” he continued. “The internet’s outpouring of grief over a potential future without online adult content has reinforced the purpose and usefulness of the work being done by the dedicated men and women of ICM Registry, who are devoted to building appropriate destinations for adult consumers who are looking for adult content.”

Lawley added that Google’s development should be perceived as no more than a signal that the internet is simply changing into a more targeted community where people can easily find what they are looking for — including those who search for porn.

“The effective de-ranking of adult content in an attempt to prevent inadvertent exposure to adult content is a trend we have seen in recent months by the major search engines,” Lawley said. “New top-level domains such as dot-xxx are making it easier for consumers to find exactly what they want while at the same time making it easy for those wishing to avoid such content. This is all about giving the consumer what they want and expect without surprises.”

Erika Icon contributed to this report.