It happens to the greatest marketers. You Google your website and discover that the search engine has indexed some pages that you would have preferred to keep private or hidden. This may be outdated information, duplicate content, or material with sensitive or personal information.
Take a breath! And remember the following options for getting content removed from Google’s cache:
1) Remove or update the content
- If the content you’re wanting to apply a no-index tag to is private, either remove it from your site or make sure there’s security features enabled so that crawlers can’t access password-protected information. If you choose to delete the content, set up a 301 redirect somewhere on your page so users will be sent to an alternative relevant page instead of seeing a 404 error message.
- If the material is only being updated, make the necessary modifications in your CMS and then let Google re-index quickly by using the URL in Google Search Console. If it’s duplicate content (for example, any parts of the site that appear multiple times) that should be removed from your website, leave it as is and add a no-index tag to the pages you don’t want indexed. Also, include a rel=canonical link reference to the page you DO want indexed.
You can wait for Google to re-crawl your website and the material should fall off of search results or be automatically updated.
But, if the content issue is urgent and you would like it to be removed right away, proceed to Step 2.
2) Add the URL to the “Removals” tool in Google Search Console
Anyone that manages or owns a website may use Google Search Console for free., follow verification instructions provided by Google then:
- To remove a page from search results and Google’s cache:
- Login to your account
- Click on “Removal” from the “Index” menu
- Then select the “Temporary Removals” tab
- Click on the “New Request” button ( make sure it is set to “Remove this URL only”) and enter the URL of then hit submit.
Google will typically process your request within 24-48 hours.
Other options in this section:
- If you want the URL to stay but need the cache and snippet for the page updated faster:
- Click on “Clear Cached URL.”
- If you want to remove an entire folder or directory of your site from search results:
- Click “Remove all URLs with this prefix.
A “Removed” status on your Submitted Requests list means that we have processed your request. Please note that this is only a temporary solution. To permanently remove the content you need to remove it from your site or update the source page.
PRO TIP:
If you are looking to ensure your content is being removed as quickly as possible, Google offers an additional tool to remove outdated pages, it is a part of Search Console;
but is accessed through the Public Search Console Help page.You don’t need to verify that you own the website in order for this tool to work. Simply enter the URL you wish to delete, and our system will analyze it. If we determine that the content has been removed, we’ll process your request as an Outdated Page Removal. This protection is against unauthorized page removal requests.
3) Check search results to determine if removal was successful
Sometimes, after removing a page from the index, you may discover that it remains in search results and the cache. Enter the precise URL into your search engine to verify whether it has been removed. If your URLs do not redirect to their lower-case variants or if canonicalization is not implemented, you will need to submit multiple versions of the URL.
PRO TIP:
It is considered an SEO best practice to ensure all pages redirect to their lowercase version because search engines recognize URLs with different cases as being different pages.
Ensure you have followed Google’s Removal Guidelines.
Keep in mind that the removal request you submitted through Google Search Console is not permanent. If you want your content to remain on search results pages after 90 days, you must take the following actions: block access to your content:
-> Create a user-agent blacklist to block malicious bots. nnTo prevent spam and other unwanted content from being indexed, add your server directories to the user-agent blacklist. Add meta tags to restrict search indexing. nOpt out of Google Plus Local and other Google Properties display by opting out of service.
With all that in place, you should be good to go!
PRO TIP:
If you want to remove a page from search engine results, the best way to do so is by deleting the page. However, if you can’t delete the page for some reason, then blocking it using robots.txt should be your next course of action.
Experienced SEO Specialist and Entrepreneur. Participated in startup projects in the markets of different countries. Participant and speaker at several digital marketing conferences. Leads several channels in different languages and also writes articles for various resources. Invented the style of imperial content matrices that increase the effectiveness of SEO and content marketing