Tumblr – Current NSFW Policy for Adult Blogs

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It's my perception that there were so many policy changes about adult content after Yahoo! acquired Tumblr that I don't know what's currently the real deal. What's Yahoo's definitive policy about NSFW blogs at this date?

Are adult tumblrs blocked from 3rd party search engines (e.g. Google)?

If you sign-up for the first time right now, do you have to "opt-in" to view adult tumblrs while browsing Tumblr logged-in?

Best Answer

Reading posts

According to the documentation, users need to opt-in to be able to find posts from NSFW blogs with Tumblr’s search:

What should I do if I don't want to see adult-oriented content?
Unless you actively choose to display explicit content, when you search for anything on Tumblr you will not see content from blogs that are marked as NSFW (not safe for work). […]

It seems that this setting was available at tumblr.com/settings/dashboard, called Safe Mode.

Now it’s directly on the search page, a little padlock icon:

Screenshot of Tumblr search: explicit content setting

This works only for logged-in users. Anonymous users can’t search for NSFW content.

Writing posts

Tumblr (still) allows NSFW content:

Is adult-oriented content allowed on Tumblr?
Yes, Tumblr welcomes and encourages all forms of expression. […]

NSFW blog owners should flag their blogs:

My blog contains adult-oriented content; what should I do?
If your blog contains nudity, mature or adult-oriented content, please respect the choices of the people in our community and flag your blog NSFW from your Settings page.

If a blog is flagged as NSFW, it can still be crawled by search engines:

Screenshots of Tumblr blog settings: Directory

It seems that once there was a setting that implied that all adult blogs (there was a differentiation between adult and NSFW) would have to be blocked, but according to a staff’s blog post, this was a mistake and only applied to a small set of spammy NSFW blogs.