How To Swear: Using Curse Words In the D- - - - Headline

One good rule of thumb is to avoid using vulgar language and profanity in headlines and page titles, especially if your site relies on Google News and Discover for traffic. But there are rare cases where curse words are part of the story and you'll want to include them in the head and titles.

Before we look at how to do that, here are Google's News & Discover Policy Violations:

Adult-themed content

Content contains or alludes to nudity, sex acts, sexually suggestive activities, or sexually explicit material.

Vulgar language and profanity (News and Discover)

Content that contains "gratuitous obscenities or profanities." Google and Syndication Partners don't want to see obscenities or profanities that are primarily intended to be shocking, sensational, or gratuitous.

Words to stop using in URLs, headlines, SEO titles, og:titles, promo titles, and meta descriptions:

• NSFW Anything << This will block articles from Google News and Discover
• Sex (sex act, sex confession, sexually suggestive activities, sexually explicit material)
• Words or phrases that suggest sexual acts or fetishes
• Swear words for shock value - unless approved and/or your editorial policy allows it

Articles that contain words that allude to adult-themed content or vulgar language and profanity will likely not appear in Google News, regular Google Search, Google Discover, or partner syndication feeds if you have partnerships with AppleNews, Flipboard, and other syndication sites. Advertisers may also have rules about their ads appearing mew certain word usage. Ultimately, this can hurt traffic to your site.

How To Avoid Violating Google and Syndication Partner Policies

Instead of 'NSFW', in the hed and SEO titles, use:

• Rique, off-color, cheeky, racy, immodest, lewd, provocative, suggestive, naughty, bawdy, etc.
• Or, change the focus of the hed

Instead of using gratuitous swear words in the hed and SEO titles:

• Change the focus of the hed/title
• Or allude to it (Ex. TK Shares Explicit Response To...)

How To Use Curse Words in Headlines,Titles, And Body Copy

Note: Editorial policies can vary, but this can be a jumping off point

• If a curse word appears in the headline or page title, make sure to remove it from the URL.
• 'Badass' and 'bitch' can be spelled out.
• Other curse words and slurs get hyphens, not dashes, and no last letter: 's- - -', 'a- - - - - -', not 's- - t', 'a- - hole'
• For words ending in 'ing', use the first letter, plus hyphens, then 'ing': 'f- - -ing'. Out of context, this word could be farting, farking, fussing, fading, etc.