We have recently been informed by Google that they are making changes to their search functionality which will have implications for your school, specifically with regard to the way content filtering works in Google Search. These changes are being made to improve the security and privacy of your searches.
These are global changes, and will start taking effect from next Tuesday 23rd June.
What’s changing?
Google SafeSearch for all schools on the Managed Network
Google are now giving us a better way of continuing to ensure all searches carried out by users on the Managed Network are done with SafeSearch mode turned on. This means students and staff are less likely to inadvertently come across inappropriate content when carrying out searches.
N4L’s Keyword Filtering Now Unavailable for Google Search
Over and above Google SafeSearch, we have until now been providing an additional layer of protection for your school, by blocking certain explicit keywords inside Google Search. However, as a result of these changes we are no longer able provide this extra level of protection to Google search results.
If you wish to continue to apply keyword filtering to Google search results you will need to consider implementing N4L’s Secure Website Inspection feature. This is a new feature now available as part of N4L’s Web Filtering service which allows you to manage applications within websites and extend your school’s ability to ensure a safe online environment.
If you would like to find out more about the above changes and what they mean for your school we invite you to attend a webinar run by N4L and Netsafe next Thursday 25th June. The webinar will be hosted by Tim Kong, School Training Lead at N4L, at 4.00pm.
Register now for the Webinar
If you have any further questions please feel free to contact:
N4L 0800 LEARNING or [email protected]
Netsafe 0508 NETSAFE or [email protected]