A Look at Google’s Webpage Removal Request Tool

by Brett Borders

Imagine that one day, you are shocked to find your business name listed on a pornographic / adult spam page. Or someone has posted as copy of your driver’s license or social security number on a website for revenge. Or what if you search for something harmless in Google Images… and find a deeply disturbing, xxxx-rated picture?

Asking Google to Remove Negative Links

Google offers a little-known service called the Webpage Removal Request Tool.

Goog\'e webpage removal request tool

This tool allows you to request the removal of certain types of pages from its search index. Anyone with a Gmail / Google account can request that an offensive or “dead” page be removed. Google says they will personally consider all requests, and they will notify you when (and if) a page is removed.

Google page removal requests

Google tries hard not to play judge or arbitrator; they give you the burden of trying to contact the webmaster and and asking her remove the negative information, first. If the Webmaster agrees to remove the offensive information (lucky you!), you can then follow up with Google’s Webpage Removal Request Tool to make sure the cache of the old version gets wiped out of Google’s index.

If you are unable to contact the Webmaster or get them to cooperate in taking the bad information down, Google lists 4 kinds of web pages that they will consider hand-editing right out of their index. Pages that contain:

  • Your social security or government ID number
  • Your bank account or credit card number
  • An image of your signature
  • Your full name or the name of your business appearing on an adult content site that’s spamming Google’s search results.

are all eligible to be manually deleted from Google’s index.

Even though those are the explicit criteria Google asks for, it wouldn’t hurt to ask for the removal of any very offensive or defamatory page using this tool. Google is unlikley to do it or to give a personal response, but at the very least someone with the power to take action is likely to take a look at it.

How Long Does A Web Page Removal Request Take?

Many people have submitted a removal request and they impatiently wonder how long does a Google web page removal request take?

When you submit a request to Google, it goes into a queue and it is reviewed as soon as possible by an anonymous human editor at Google. While your request is waiting to be examined, it will show a status of “pending” :

A human at Google will get to reviewing it as soon as possible, depending upon their workload. My own requests have been processed within 4 to 48 hours. Other people have reported waiting times ranging from 1 to 7 days.

Once a decision is made, you can log back into the tool and you will see the page marked either “removed” or “denied.”

The pages or (negative information on part of the page) will sometimes be taken out of the search results before the Web Page Removal Request Tool gets updated.

How long does it take Google to remove the cache of a page once it is deleted?

Sometimes Google will partially remove a page from the index. It will still show a single blue link to the page, but your name or information will no longer show up in the description.

It will also not have a cache, or snapshot of the old information from the last time Google crawled the page. In my experience, these pages usually go away when replaced with more information on the topic but it can take more time (sometime months).

Explore this tool and let me know what you find out about it in the comments below!

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  • Mister
    It normally only take 3 days for Google to give you and answer.

    My question is .......Google has stated websites will be removed but they still come up when I do a search. Why is that and when will they actually be removed?
  • Ci3J
    I'm in the exact same boat, I submitted a request, and less than 24 hours Google showed it as "removed", but the page still shows up in searches....But now without the cache option. My guess is the pages will be removed once Google re-crawls the web, but no one really knows when that will happen, other than Google's claim that they do it "once a month". (A "deep" crawl, anyway...)
  • Ci3J
    For the record, the offending page has since been removed by Google. It took a little over a month, but now when I search, it doesn't show up. So it works, just be patient.
  • Marina
    You may never see this, but I wanted to thank you, Ci3J, for updating the status of this. So few people do, on help sites like this, but it's SO HELPFUL when people do. Thanks so much! Glad your problem got resolved, and now I know to be patient about my own.
  • Yeah, it's really helpful.

    Thanks Ci3J for the real-time info, and thanks, Marina, for your comments and support.
  • Mister,

    Sorry, I'm not sure. I know you're probably burning with impatience
    at a page that shouldn't be there... wait a few more days and submit
    again?

    -Brett
  • Interesting tool, not much info on time and changes to have effect. Good to know!
  • Bangash
    hello, any can help me plzzz, someone creat a webpage in 4mg.com which contain wrong and some confidential information about me along some of my pictures,so plx tell me how i can remove that webpage and how to stop this...plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • chelsea
    I am also having this problem. I used to model professionally and I have had countless people steal my images and post them along with my full name on adult sites. The images aren't harmful but the sites and descriptions are. I submitted a removal request yesterday and was wondering how long this usually takes?
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  • jenni
    hey brett; i have the exact same problem of getting a lot of adult spam results when i search for my own name. i submitted a request two weeks ago, but I haven't received any follow-up e-mails yet. i would really appreciate it if you could tell me how long the process took for your client who had business/adult spam. thanks!
  • Brett Borders
    Parken,

    Google doesn't publicize this tool very much, but it's good to know about.

    Mark,

    You know quite a lot about ORM and I appreciate your insights, too.
  • Thank you as always Brett! I appreciate your insight!
  • Hi Brett. Thanks for this tool. We've never used it but it looks interesting!
  • Brett Borders
    Hayden,

    Good advice. If you got some links and filled out this Google tool, I think it would be your best shot.
  • You could also try resubmitting the page to Google or getting a couple of backlinks to the updated page to get them to reindex it.
  • Brett Borders
    Shilpa,

    Yes, I believe you can do this.

    The Webpage Removal Request Tool has an option that says:

    "The site owner has modified this page so that it no longer contains the information or image that concerns me."

    This way, if the webpaster has removed the incorrect information and apologized to you about it, this should (hopefully) expedite Google to remove the OLD copy of the page from the search results. Soemtimes just the description that shows up in the search results can be very harmful.

    I think that Google aims to avoid being the "content police" and asks you to try and resolve matters with the webmaster. The won't edit stuff out of the index (except for adult spam, signatures) - but if the webmaster has changed the information, they will hurry up and make their search results reflect changes (to the page title, content, description).

    Hope this answers your question / helps!
  • Shilpa
    Can we send a request to remove a post that is giving wrong information about our company and also at the end of that post the webmaster had appologized for the wrong information?
  • Brett Borders
    Hayden,

    Glad you liked the post. Thanks for reading and leaving your comments!

    To answer your question, I have requested that Google remove legitimately "dead" pages with this tool and it was gone within 3 days - marked as removed. A client had success removing "Adult content spam pages" that contain his businessname - so they DO respond to these.
  • Like the post. Curious as to how responsive Google is with these requests.
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