Using Full-Text Searching
Every full-text search engine I know that offers filtering offers machine filtering. That means instead of having humans filter the search results, the results are filtered by computers. These filters are pretty good, but they are not perfect. While I appreciate filters to help eliminate results I find distasteful, I do not trust them to remove all prurient results from my searching. And you shouldn't either: machine-filtered search results aren't perfect.
If you want a strong assurance that you're not going to run into any search results that'll make your head hurt, I recommend against using full-text search engines and instead focusing on human-built search indexes, which we'll get into later in this chapter. If you are willing to take some risks, I can make a few suggestions about limiting your searches such that you can get mostly good search results, with a minor risk of some bad ones.
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Bear in mind that machine filters are used for filtering things that may generally be considered offensive—adult materials, alcohol information—anything that's inappropriate for people under age 18. If you find something offensive outside that range—say, you're deeply of-fended by Pez or you don't like cumulous clouds—filters aren't going to help you. You'll need to stick to searchable subject indexes and avoid keywords that might trigger the things you find offensive.
A Guide to Doing Kid-Safe Full-Text Searching Without All Your Hair Turning White
Turn the machine filtering all the way up. No, the machine filtering doesn't always work, but it doesn't hurt. So be sure to make sure it's activated. Google has different levels of filtering available; be sure to use the highest level. Filtering options are usually on a site's advanced search page.
Use potential trigger words carefully. You don't always know what a “trigger word” is—a trigger word in this case means a word that you mean to use innocuously but that ends up getting you pornographic results. Let's do an easy example: breast cancer. Sometimes this'll trigger results that you didn't intend. In this case be sure to search for the entire phrase: “breast cancer.” Furthermore, try to add query words that won't narrow your results, but will keep them from being prurient. Like “medicine” or “treatment,” or breast cancer–related words like “biopsy.” Use your query words to steer the result in the right direction.
Stick to special searches when you can. If a site is offering special searches, and they're relevant to your topic, try those. If your kid is researching Washington, DC, and you want to do a full-text search, then try searching the Uncle Sam special search that Google offers instead of Google's main search.
Slant your search with syntaxes. There are some search syntaxes you can do that'll make your results less likely to get adult-oriented results. Limiting your search to certain top-level domains—including .edu, .gov, and .mil—will help. Using non-trigger words and restricting them to page titles will help. Using your syntax to tighten up your searches as much as possible can really lessen the chance of inappropriate search results.
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Though the .us domain isn't as safe as it used to be, searching for inurl:k12.*.us on Google can be very useful. That assures that your search results will be limited to k12 school sites. Those aren't completely safe, but they're safer than the Internet as a whole.
Be sure to use the feedback feature. If you stumble into some content that not only is inappropriate but really doesn't belong (it's been indexed with the wrong keywords, or uses fraudulent methods to get a high search results, or something else), be sure to take advantage of any feedback mechanism offered by the search engines to report adult-oriented results that come up for nonadult searches.