What Constitutes Adult Content?

27th August 2007

A reader sent in this question:

I had a question about what the definition of an adult site was. I know that if a site has XX photos on it, it is adult, but what about words? I am starting work on a dating affiliate and am up against that issue. I noticed it first when doing my blog. I wrote the word “s e x” in a blog about testosterone, that read almost like a science text book, and was wondering if that would somehow trigger an “adult” flag on the search engines. I read recently that someone ran a program on blogs and said most of them were “adult”, but to me saying “I fucking hate people who pollute the environment” does not make it an adult site. LOL .Is there a PG rating on the web?

My answer?

No, your words on the page should not trip any sort of filter other than an end-user filter on their browser such as NetNanny etc. and you will not be flagged as an adult site, in my opinion. While I don’t know this to be fact I’m pretty comfortable in saying so.

There’s a big difference between adult content, and adult site, depending on the context in which it’s used. If you want your blog to be read by the widest variety of people and never hit any filters then of course try to stay away from any adult language at all.

While there may not be specific ratings at this point in time, I do believe that day could come, so why take a chance. You can still get your @#$%^ing point across if you’re just %$#@ing creative.