How to Remove Results From Google Search

Remove results from Google Search
It is possible!
Michael Michael (175)
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When you remove a search result from Google, you're essentially asking Google to no longer index the URL. Bear in mind, Google is obviously not going to do this for no reason, as that URL may be vital to the searches of some other people. It is possible, however, to get those results removed from appearing as a search result if certain conditions are met.

Reasons to remove a result from Google search:

  • The URL is harmful in some way, whether personally or publicly.
  • The URL violates Google's Terms of Service.
  • The URL is outdated and should no longer be indexed.
  • You own the URL and do not want it to appear.

Unfortunately, Google is unlikely to remove a URL from a search for petty reasons or because you're looking to gain a competitive business advantage, for instance. Remember that they need to protect the owner of the URL, as much as the one who would like search result removed.

In this guide, we'll show you the different ways to remove results from Google search, depending on which of the above apply!

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Remove a personally harmful or offensive Google search result

Here's the thing. Google can't technically remove any content that it does not own. So it can't, for example, shut down a URL from appearing at all. Even if you get Google to stop displaying the URL in searches, you'll still want to have the URL itself removed. Here are a couple of ways:

Contact the website owner

If you discovered a URL in a Google search result that is particularly offensive or harmful to you personally, then you should immediately contact the owner of the website and request that they remove or de-index the URL. You'll find that most websites will be amenable to such a request.

If they remove the URL, it will no longer exist on the web, so Google will remove it from results. If they de-index the page, then the URL will continue to exist—but cannot be found by Google's crawler and will not appear in results.

Report the URL/website to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)

If you've contacted the website owner, and they refuse to remove the URL—then you're next step is to report the URL to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). They will look into your claim and take the necessary actions to remove the URL from the web entirely.

Let Google know

Again, report the website to Google's copyright removal program and explain the issue. This can at least help get the page de-indexed from Google searches.

Remove outdated content from Google search results

Remove outdated content tool Google

If a URL no longer loads or is outdated:

You can check on the status of these requests by returning to the tool page.

Remove a URL that you own from appearing in Google search results

There are a variety of reasons you may want to remove your own URL from being indexed by Google. Maybe you don't want a thank-you page or a newsletter subscription page from appearing in search engines, for example. Having an incorrect page appear in a search engine result can really hurt a site's image and, often, its bottom-line.

Here's how to remove it from being indexed by Google and other search engines.

  • If you own the URL, then there's a simple code you can paste into any page you wish to un-index from ALL search engines:
<head> section of your page: <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow”>
  • If you only want to remove it from Google indexing specifically, then enter: 
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex, nofollow”>
  • Conversely, you can always delete the page entirely—if it's no longer of any value even as a draft.
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