Appearing in search results

Hoping to appear in search results?

The factors that contribute to appearing in search on Tumblr are complex and change almost daily, as we make improvements to provide the best results. So while the exact criteria may be different at any given moment, here are some factors that always affect what appears in search results:

• Whether you’re looking at top or recent search results ("top" meaning our most popular posts, and "recent" meaning the posts appear with the most recent ones first). In the app you can switch between them by tapping those options underneath the search bar, and on the web they’re at the top left of the search results.
• Whether "Hide <blog name> from search results" is disabled on that blog’s settings page.
• Original post vs. reblog (only original posts will show up in search results).
• Number of tags on the post (the first 20 tags on a post will be indexed in recent and top searches, and that blog’s own tag pages, but only the first five will be indexed in tag search results, like searching for "#stuff" rather than "stuff").
• Whether the post employs any tactics often used by spam blogs (like using an excessive amount of trending tags at one time, for example).
• How often that blog’s been posting on a particular tag or search page (if you've made multiple posts in a given public tag, only a few might show up together between other blogs for that search).
• Any links in the post (some links may cause posts to be hidden from recent search results).
• Number of post notes (for top search results only, not recent).
• Blogs that have been either self-flagged or flagged by us as “explicit” per our old policy (before December 17, 2018), will not show up in search. Users under 18 are still not allowed to click through to see the content of these blogs. If you think your blog has been erroneously marked as explicit, you can file an appeal by following these instructions.

Don't want to appear in search results?

If you don't want to appear in search results, you can always remove your blog from all search engine results (including our own) by turning off the "Allow this blog to appear in search results" option in your blog's settings on the web. 

Keep in mind that search engines cache content from all over the internet, including Tumblr. Sometimes the cached version of a Tumblr blog or post may remain on a search engine for some time, even after it’s removed from Tumblr. If there's something out there on a search engine that you want to obliterate, you’ll need to reach out directly to the search engine to have any content removed from its cache.