Turn on Google's monitor before you touch anything else
Go to myactivity.google.com/results-about-you and sign in. There is no signed-out version of this tool, so you need a Google account before you start. Choose "Get started", or "Settings" if you've been here before, then enter your name and the personal info you want watched. In the Google app the path is your profile picture or initial, then "Menu", then "Results about you".
Google lists the fields it accepts: Nickname, Maiden name, Multiple personal phone numbers, Multiple home addresses, Multiple email addresses. Enter every version of your name an old listing might carry, because the matcher keys off name plus information and a variant you skip is a result you never see. The same form will take your Social Security, passport and driver's license numbers, and you don't have to give those to make this work for a job search.
Turn notifications on and leave it running while you do the rest. Google says a match arrives within a few hours and lands in the "To review" tab. Two limits worth knowing now: Google states these features are rolling out to users over 18 in certain markets and doesn't publish the market list, and an empty "To review" tab looks exactly like being clean.
Work the To review tab, and the search page itself
Open "To review", select a result to expand it, and choose "Request to remove". Anything you're happy to leave up gets "Mark as reviewed" instead. You can also file straight off a search page: click "More" on the result, then "Remove result", then "It shows my personal info and I don't want it there", then "Contact Info", work through the flow, and select "I'm done".
Enter your contact info exactly as it appears on the result page, nickname and old address included. If a listing shows more than one type, Google says one type is enough and you don't need a second request for the same URL. A confirmation email arrives within the next few hours at the address on your Google account, so check spam before you assume it failed.
Status lives under "Removal requests", where every request reads In progress, Approved, Denied, or Undone, and opening one shows the link you flagged, the submission day and time, and a Request ID. Google publishes no review turnaround, only that an approved result can take a few more hours to leave Search. Anybody quoting you a date for a Google decision is making it up.
File the form directly for everything the monitor misses
The monitor only surfaces pages it can match to a name string, so plenty of what a recruiter finds will never appear in "To review". Those go through Google's content removal form, which still asks for no ID.
Required, in order: "Why are you requesting personal content removal from Google Search?", where you pick "Content contains your personal information"; "Your country of residence"; then "Select the personal information you would like removed from Google search results", where an ordinary people-search listing is "Address, phone number, and/or e-mail address"; then a box wanting your address, phone number or email address as they appear on the webpage; and "Google Search results page URLs", which wants the address of the Google results page itself, one per line.
One required question stops people cold: "Is there malicious or threatening intent expressed directly in the content on the URL or domain (this practice is sometimes known as doxxing)?" For a plain listing the answer is No, and No does not disqualify you. Threat language belongs to Google's separate doxxing route, not to contact-information removal. That holds for the "Address, phone number, and/or e-mail address" option. Pick "Other personal information" and answer No, and the form does stop you, telling you the policy doesn't fit your request.
"Specific content URLs" is required and takes one URL per line, up to 1,000 lines, so the profile, the print view and each relatives page each get their own line. "Search terms" is required on this path, not optional: one search term per line, up to 1,000 lines. It is where you name the search you are actually worried about, so write the queries a recruiter would type, more than your name. Answer "It's me", then give your name and email at the end. There is no anonymous option on this branch: your full name, a contact email address and your country of residence are all required before the form will submit.
Mugshot and pay-to-delete sites take a different first answer
Same form, different first option. Pick "Content is on a site with exploitative removal practices", not the personal information branch. Choosing wrong here sinks the claim, because the exploitative path is the only one that asks the question your case rests on.
Google states three requirements: you're a subject of the content in the URL you submit, the website is not a business review site, and the website requires payment to the site or other agencies to have the content removed. The form then asks, and it's required, "Has the website asked you to pay money to the site or to an agency for personal content removal?" It also requires you to write out how the site is exploitative, and it takes screenshots.
Never pay the site. The demand for money is the evidence, so paying it hands away the strongest argument you have with Google, and if the listing does reappear at a different URL, that's a new request rather than a failed one. Screenshot the payment demand before you do anything else, because that's the upload the form wants.
Fix what you own, then flush Google's copy of it
Google won't remove information you can remove yourself, and it says so plainly: info on a social media page or a personal blog that you own is yours to take down. Edit or delete it at the source first. A removal request aimed at your own site does nothing except come back to you.
Once the page is gone, or the content was deleted from the site and Google is still showing the old text, sign in to the Refresh outdated content tool, select "Request refresh", use the "Page" tab, paste the URL and select "Submit". For a photo, find it at images.google.com, right-click the thumbnail, choose "Copy link address", then in the tool select "Request refresh", "New request", "Image", "Enter Copy link address", paste and "Submit".
This is not a removal tool. Google's own note at the top of its Refresh outdated content help page: if you've already updated a live page, you don't have to fill out the form. It exists for content that was deleted from a site and still comes up in search results. Sending it a live, unchanged page spends the request and changes nothing.
On LinkedIn, change your visibility settings before you rewrite a single line of your profile. They live at linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/categories/profile-visibility, which signs you in first. Two settings matter: your public profile is the version search engines index, and the setting that shares profile updates with your network is what tells your current employer you're looking.
California: one request reaches over 600 brokers
If you're a California resident, go to privacy.ca.gov/drop and select "Get started with DROP". Three steps: "Step 1. Verify your eligibility", which runs through the California Identity Gateway and does not require you to create an account, with Login.gov offered as an option; "Step 2. Create your profile"; and "3. Submit your DROP request", which goes to over 600 registered data brokers at once.
The dates matter more than the buttons. DROP launched January 1, 2026, data brokers only began processing requests on August 1, 2026, and the state says it can take up to 90 days for status to show. By November 2026 every broker in DROP should have finished its initial cycle. After that, brokers must delete data every 45 days, which makes one request a standing scrub rather than a one-time favor.
Follow it with "Check DROP status", and don't read silence inside that window as failure. DROP is California only, and it only reaches companies registered as data brokers with the state. Everywhere else, and for anything that isn't a registered broker, each site is still its own opt-out.
Pull your background check before an employer does
The report that sinks an offer is not a Google result. Background screening is a separate system with its own rules, and the federal guidance is direct: an employer must ask for your written permission before getting the report, and if it may reject you based on that report, it has to give you a copy of the report and a notice of rights telling you how to contact the company that made it.
Pull your own credit file first, free, at annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228. Do it before you apply, not after a rejection, because corrections take time you won't have. If something on a background report is wrong, the guidance is specific: ask the background reporting company to fix it and to send a corrected copy to the employer, and tell the employer about the mistake yourself. The notice of rights is what names the company you write to.
Then put a date two weeks out in your calendar and run the same searches again. A removal is bound to one URL, so a profile that reappears at a new address is a new request, not a failed one. If the page came down but the old title and text are still showing, that's the refresh tool above, not another removal. And a denial on a news story, a court docket or a government page isn't appealable through any of this: those come down at the source, at the court, or not at all.