@wyogems you are welcome!
There is no public list of banned words, but I collected some of them in a Tumblr post last year. I will copy from that because I can't post the link:
"Here’s exactly how Etsy describes this “mature content classifier”, a new site feature:
“…in 2022, we developed a mature content classifier which identifies potentially mature listings using text and image recognition. Using this technology, we work to keep these kinds of items from being displayed to users who aren’t looking for them, while still allowing those who are to find them. While no technology is perfect and we may sometimes get it wrong, we’ve seen a 17% decrease in flags of mature content from our member community since adding this classifier to our search experience.” [my emphasis]
This comes as no surprise to many sellers of both “mature” and non-mature items, as there have been many reports of items that are no longer searchable for many (if not most) words in their titles. For example, an affected listing will show up for a search that includes the shadow-banned words, but not other searches. Words and phrases that can trigger this issue include:
I am sure you can imagine many others! (but these are ones sellers have discovered and discussed publicly). For most of them, it makes no sense for Etsy to remove the item from all searches except those containing the offending word/s, since many of the words can be used innocently. “Nude” can be a colour, for example.
The most bizarre so far is the dog diaper listing, which was affected not only by the words “menstrual” and “panties” but also the lead image of a toy dog wearing the garment. Switching up the photos so the toy was not the lead made the item searchable again.
If your items are not at all mature and should not be classified as such by Etsy, contacting Support may help you get them restored, although many cannot even get a straight explanation from Etsy on this point. For some shops, removing the offending word from the title but keeping it in the tags may restore searchability, as can changing the first photo."
The Etsy quote comes from here: https://storage.googleapis.com/etsy-extfiles-prod/Press/Etsy_2022_Transparency_Report.pdf
