When Not to Use SafeSearch

As nice as SafeSearch is, especially if you have kids, sometimes it can get in the way. That's because its relatively simple nature (looking for a list of objectionable words) casts a fairly wide net. For example, an innocent search for "breast," in regards to women's health, can get caught up in the filtering net if you have SafeSearch turned on.

For that reason, you probably want to disable SafeSearch filtering when you're searching health or medical subjects. You should also consider disabling SafeSearch if you're not satisfied with any normal search; it's sometimes hard to tell just what the content filter is filtering until you turn it off.

Commentary: SafesearchHelp Or Hindrance?

Personally, I'm not a big fan of content filtersespecially when those filters are somewhat unsophisticated. Unfortunately, Google's SafeSearch falls into this category.

The problem with an unsophisticated content filter is that it's fairly dumb. All SafeSearch does is look for a list of words, and does its blocking based on appearance in that list. Just because a site contains one of those words, however, doesn't automatically mean that the site itself is objectionablethe example of breast cancer sites, which contain the word "breast," being a good example.

These dumb filters also catch a lot of innocent sites in their net. CNET recently reported that PartsExpress.com found itself being blocked by Google's SafeSearch filter, because the letters s-e-x were contained in the site's URL. It wasn't a sex site, obviously, but that's the way these content filters workby brute force.

Google's brute force approach to content filter is the way almost all content filters used to workten years ago. Most third-party content filtering programs today are more sophisticated in the way they look for potentially objectionable sites; they may start with a word filter list, but apply various algorithms to try to put those words in context on a site. The results are still less than perfect, and still block a number of legitimate sites, but at least it's progress.

If you have kids on your PC, Google's SafeSearch filter is a good way to help protect them from seeing things they shouldn't be seeing. But if you're searching on your own, you might find the results too limiting. If so, do the smart thingand turn off the filter.