Does google apply an ethics filter

I was wondering. When we talk about TR or the 200+ factors that go into making up the algo. Do you think there is any ethical or value judgement going into it?

It is fairly common knowledge that google uses a different PR scale on adult content. This on the whole makes it harder for adult stuff to compete with the more non xxx uses of key adult words ie models.etc

But does google also downgrade other sites ability to rank on sometype of moral/ethical system. Do people think that google for example uses some penalty/filter against sites that are running scams (assuming google knows about them) or selling questionable products like fake degrees, or other stuff of questionable legality.

When we use the term bad neighborhood, what exactly do we mean. ie its fairly commonly accepted that link farms are bad neighborhoods or sites that have been banned from google maybee. But what about terrorist sites, black hat seo sites, hate sites does having links to sites like this put you indanger of been seen linking to a bad neighbourhood?

If it was my search engine i would not be sure of if i wanted to do this or not. Firstly I would oppose it as I do not like censorship. I would support it also though as I would be happy if people found it hard to find some of these sort of sites.

what are others thorts? Does google carry out moral/ethical censhorship of search results? Is the term bad neighbourhood a google term used to say sites we do not approve of or sites that are trying to manipulate SERPs only.

I don't think so, a bad neighbourhood I always assumed was simply a site in violation of googles terms.

As for a penaly for questionable products, legality, etc... in my opinion, its just that questionable, who's to question it one way or another, I would think google wants the users to find what they want even if it's questionable.

But who knows.

Actually, Ethics filter!.. I would not say directly But indirectly, google is trying to inculcate such things.

For example:

1. Demolishing the power of paid links

2. Making recips dead

3. Making the nofollow the trend

4. More emphasis laid on PPC.

5. Forums links/sitewide discounted..

And a lot more..IMHO, these are nothing but certain steps to ensure that all that comes up, comes up the ethical way. "Content" I will say, Will remain the KING, and "High Quality Natural Links, that are mae without any influence of yours" will remain the Queen.

So definitely Ethics Playground is spreading way to vast.. then one can imagine. Actually theres hardly anything left to do.. The day isnt far, when it will all become a 2 step job. Buy a domain, Write content.. and forget it for atleast 2-3 years.. if such devalution of assets goes on..

Regards

Sure but that applies to SEO, he was talking about a sites subject / content and being devalued based off of that which I don't think occurs but definitely for SEO.

Ye.. Exactly I was talking about general SEO only, Did not move deeper in to Particular site types, as it might be any kind of site, If anything Unethical goes on, It will be swamped..

For example.. If you try and search some keygenerators and all, (earlier there was no check), You can see many sites listed in Index that a warning written just below the of the clickable part.

"This site may harm your computer" - this a warning against malware that may install a virus on your system if you click on it..

Similarly google will make industry specific rules/bans/warnings for the sites that goes unethical, creates big scam lists/online frauds etc.

That was what I meant whilst I said, ""So definitely Ethics Playground is spreading way to vast.. then one can imagine. Actually theres hardly anything left to do.. The day isnt far, when it will all become a 2 step job. Buy a domain, Write content.. and forget it for atleast 2-3 years.. if such devalution of assets goes on..""

Regards

So,, we have all see this , which clearly indicates that Google does want to safe guard the interest of its users, however, there is no indication that Google don't want us to find the information we are looking for.

Firstly there should not be any ethical filtering because the "non-ethical" sites will actually be competing in their niche and they are not really going to affect the "ethical" sites in any significant way.

The second reason is that when someone is searching with a "unethical" keyword he is actually trying to find "unethical" sites - so there is no good reason why Google shouldn't serve the best unethical result for that.

Google's business is to serve the best results to its users for their query- so if an user searches for a unethical keyword i dont see any reason why Google should put a filter and serve ethical results to him .

Well Niche is alright but when it comes to generic search terms, such as single word terms, then comes the question..

While you optimize your website for keyword Ummm say "Car Models" or "Business Model" You are actually promoting your site for two individual terms as well, which on a later stage makes the site ranked whenever the term Models appear..

Ofcourse the sites compete in their own niche, thats why google degrades the links coming from porn/casino/hate sites..Infact this degrading process itself is a way to check the unethical things.. Most of the penalties/deindexing processes are done on the hacks/warez/porn related sites..

Infact Information should be available for everything, cause everyone needs to gain something, But unethical services should be removed. Like gazzahk said, terrorism, fake degrees etc. Information about these sites will be alright, but services from these sites can be .. Disasterous..

It basically comes more into the "Disadvantages of Internet" rather then SEO process.. However promoting the sites of such unethical groups would be a point to be considered..