Well, how about that, a site that uses YouTube videos for content got “slapped” by Google. If you don’t know, Google owns YouTube.

Okay, slapped in this case means it is showing content not up to standards which Google sees fit for adword content.

In this particular case, I was using the default requests which would allow for “all” videos to be displayed regardless of content. Google sent a message showing the actual page that was in question and stated it had been unauthorized. I looked at it and found no contend, at least text, that would fall into this category. In further review, there was one video that actually showed nature engaged in reproductive activity. Not a problem until I listened to the audio associated with it. Yup, I would have banned it for that too. I do have a “profanity filter” that I use on sites as well yet would have not worked in this case. Do keep in mind this is a YouTube video.

Finally, something that “made” me figure out the search scheme to eliminate unwanted videos on a site which is meant for everybody. Being just a php hack who has been around programming and computer use since 1980, there is not too much I can’t figure out to do what I want (certainly not in the professional programming category however). I implemented the new query string only to find the video in question was still there. Not surprising since video content needs human eyes to evaluate. Just the same, I replied to Google as to my addition of the safeSearch in my queries. Not good enough for Google…it is still banned.

The basic query is:

“http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?q=keyword&safeSearch=strict&v=2″

where the search query default is by “relevance.” Notice the “safeSearcy=strict” in the url.

Turns out an unexpected benefit of this type of search is the foreign spiders stopped crawling my site. They were using the site as a “proxy” server to view videos that were not allowed in their country. Since they would search on my site, YouTube thought it was coming from the good ole’ US of A.

For a peek of the site as it is now, you can see it at Hotists.com

This is a site specific for Hot Artists past and present. I change the artists on occasion…actually rarely.

I hope this will help someone who is looking for the safeSearch query for YouTube.

Have a great day.

Joseph