Google makes it harder to find porn -- and .xxx loves it

Google took the porn away -- and the web’s dirty side loves it.

Google tweaked its search algorithm overnight, effectively making it much harder to stumble upon pornographic images. The company says this will minimize the likelihood that a random search for, say, bicycling, would return sexually explicit pictures. And the company responsible for the search.xxx website -- a search engine for pornography -- applauded the decision.

“Google has made a good decision, one that reinforces the purpose and usefulness of the work we’ve been doing to build a destination for adult consumers who are looking for high quality content,” Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry, told FoxNews.com. “The Internet is changing into a more targeted community where people can more easily find what they are looking for -- including for the porn-searching consumer.”

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Google explained that the change to its algorithm was not censorship, as some complained on Internet chat boards, but an effort to clean up and better filter results.

"We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for -- but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them,” a Google representative told CNET.

Lawley said Google’s actions continued a trend his company has already noticed: Other large search engines have already made or are likely to make similar moves, he said.

“The effective de-ranking of adult content in an attempt to prevent inadvertent exposure to adult content is a trend we have seen in recent months by the major search engines. New top-level domains such as .xxx are only making it easier for consumers to find exactly what they want but at the same time making it easy for those wishing to avoid content.”

“To us it’s all about giving the consumer what they want and expect without surprises,” Lawley told FoxNews.com.

Google isn’t opposed to pornography, however. Indeed, the site offered some advice for users hoping to rely on the familiar search engine for all of their needs.

“If you're looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting -- you just may need to be more explicit in your query," Google said.