Enabling the SafeSearch Filter

There are four ways to enable (or disable) the SafeSearch filterfrom the Preferences page, by using the Advanced Search page, by using the safesearch: search operator, or by modifying the URL of any search results page. We'll look at each method in turn.

SafeSearch Filtering from the Preferences Page

To turn on or off SafeSearch filtering on a global basis (for all future searches), use the settings on Google's Preferences page. Follow these steps:

1.	From Google's main search page, click the Preferences link.
2.	When the Preferences page appears, scroll down to the SafeSearch Filtering section (shown in Figure 12.1). Figure 12.1. Enabling SafeSearch filtering on the Preferences page. [View full size image]
3.	Select one of the three options: Use Strict Filtering (affects both text and image searching), Use Moderate Filtering (affects image searching only), or Do Not Filter My Search Results (turns off SafeSearch filtering). Moderate Filtering is selected by default.
4.	Click the Save Preferences button.

SafeSearch Filtering from the Advanced Search Page

Google's Advanced Search page also features a SafeSearch option, which is great for when you want to filter (or not filter) a specific search request onlywithout affecting your overall SafeSearch settings. To apply content filtering from the Advanced Search page, follow these steps:

1.	From Google's main search page, click the Advanced Search link.
2.	When the Advanced Search page appears (as shown in Figure 12.2), select the Filter Using SafeSearch option. Figure 12.2. Enabling SafeSearch filtering on the Advanced Search page. [View full size image]
3.	Enter the rest of your search query.
4.	Click the Google Search button.

SafeSearch Filtering from the Standard Search Box

If you prefer to fine-tune your searches from the standard search box, using advanced search operators, you can enable or disable SafeSearch filtering on a search-by-search basis by using the safesearch: operator. All you have to do is add the safesearch: operator at the beginning of your query. For example, if you're searching for breast cancer and want to filter out any adult sites that might pop up (due to the inclusion of the word "breast"), modify your query to safesearch: breast cancer, as shown in Figure 12.3.

SafeSearch Filtering by Editing the Search Results URL

Back in Chapter 2, "Searching the Web," we discussed how you can modify search results by editing the URL of any search results page. Well, there's a URL parameter you can apply for SafeSearch filtering, which is great if you want to conduct a search contrary to your normal SafeSearch settings. It works like this:

• If you normally have SafeSearch turned on and you want to expand your search results to include potentially objectionable material, add &safe=off to the end of the search results page URL, and then rerun the search. (Figure 12.4 shows how this might look.)

  Figure 12.4. Expanding your search results by turning off the SafeSearch filter from the search results page URL.

  [View full size image]
  

• If you normally have SafeSearch turned off and you want to remove objectionable material from the results, add &safe=on to the end of the search results page URL, and then rerun the search.