Record types How to remove your name from Google search results

There's no request that removes your name from Google. Every tool Google publishes works one URL at a time, and none of them deletes anything. The site owner controls the page, which is why your first email goes to them, not to Google. The work is a list of exact addresses and the right form for each one. Here's that order, and what each request actually buys you.

Hidden from Google, still on the web

A granted request pulls one URL out of Google's results. The page stays live at the same address, opens for anyone holding the link, and keeps ranking on Bing and DuckDuckGo. Google says it in its own words on its removal options page: "While we can prevent content from appearing in our search results, we can't remove it from websites that host it." Only the site owner deletes.

No ID, but you hand over a dossier

The form's first screen marks two fields required: the reason radio and "Your country of residence". The screen after it requires more. That's "Select the personal information you would like removed", "Specific content URLs", "Google Search results page URLs" and "Search terms", plus screenshots so Google can locate the information on the page. There's no government ID upload. For a confidential ID number the form asks only for the last four characters as they appear on the reported page. The real cost runs the other way. To switch on monitoring you give Google every address, phone number, email, nickname and maiden name, and it will take your Social Security, passport and driver's license numbers too.

The public-interest carve-out kills most of it

Google's policy says that "if the content is about something important or newsworthy, like the news, Google might not take it down." The self-serve tool won't act on results from websites owned by educational or government institutions, or newspapers. A news article, a county portal or a university page is the ordinary case, not the edge case. Filing there ordinarily comes back denied; the route that works on those pages is the publisher or a court order.

Build the URL list before you open a single form

Search your full name in quotes. Then try your name plus your city, your name plus your employer, and your name with a middle initial, and go several result pages deep on each one. For every hit, copy the exact address out of the browser bar, not the link off the results page. Google reviews only the URLs you submit and doesn't go looking for the rest. A page you didn't find is a page that stays.

Screenshot each one while it's up, and write down the search terms that produced it. Google asks for screenshots so it can locate the information on the page. Rebuilding this list a week later is where most people quit. Put the URLs and the shots in one document now, and every request below takes minutes instead of an evening.

Email the site owner first, because it's the only step that deletes anything

Google sends you here before anywhere else, on a page called Contact a website owner. Look for a "Contact us" link on the site. If there isn't one, search google.com for whois www.example.com and take the address listed under "Registrant Email" or "Administrative Contact". That same lookup names the hosting company. When the owner never answers, that's who you write to.

Ask for deletion, name the URL, and keep it to two sentences. This is the only request in this guide that takes the information off the internet. Everything after it changes what Google shows and nothing else. Did the owner delete the page or edit your details out of it? Go straight to the refresh step so Google picks the change up.

Switch on Results about you and feed it every version of your name

Go to myactivity.google.com/results-about-you and sign in. Signed out, it's a "Sign in to get started" wall, and there's no anonymous version. Press "Get started", then enter the name and the information you want watched: nickname, maiden name, every phone number, every address, every email address. The matcher keys off name plus information, so a variant you skip is a result you never see.

Google says that if you have notifications on, you'll get one within a few hours when a search result matches. Matches appear in the "To review" tab. Open a result and press "Request to remove". Choose "It shows my personal info and I don't want it there", then "Contact Info", and submit. Track everything under "Removal requests", where each one reads In progress, Approved, Denied or Undone.

Two limits before you lean on this. Google's help page says the feature is "currently rolling out for users who are over the age of 18 in certain markets" and never names the markets. And it handles contact details only. The flow forces you through Contact Info, so news stories, mugshots, dockets, lawsuits and reviews are not this tool's job. Those go through the form below or nowhere.

File the removal form for everything the tool won't touch

You reach the personal content removal form from any Google help page with the "Start removal request" button. Its first screen asks "Why are you requesting personal content removal from Google Search?" It gives four options: nudity or sexual material, "Content contains your personal information", a site with exploitative removal practices, or a person under 18. Pick the personal information branch, then give "Your country of residence".

The eligible list is literal, and Google spells it out: "Your address, phone number, or email", confidential government IDs like Social Security or tax ID numbers, your bank account or credit card number, "Pictures of your signature or ID", "Private records, like medical records", and confidential usernames and passwords. Don't describe what the page is about. Quote the exact line on the page that carries one of those.

Doxxing is a second route with two conditions, and either one on its own is enough. One is your personal info alongside "explicit or implicit threats against you (or calls for others to harm or harass you)". The other is "A significant amount of aggregated personal info without a legitimate purpose." That second prong is the one that fits a people-search profile. It does not require a threat, and most published guides leave it out entirely.

If the site demands money to take the page down, pick "Content is on a site with exploitative removal practices" instead. All three conditions have to hold: you're a subject of the content, "The website is not a business review site", and the site "requires payment to the site or other agencies to have the content removed." Yelp and Google reviews are business review sites, so this route is shut there. Screenshot the payment demand before you touch anything. Paying it deletes your only evidence along with the page.

Force the re-crawl, but only after the page is down

Refresh outdated content bounces you to a Google sign-in, so have an account open before you start. Press "Request refresh", then on the "Page" tab enter the URL and press "Submit". For a picture, press "Request refresh", choose "New request" and then "Image". Paste the image link you copied from image search and press "Submit". What you filed shows up under "Refresh outdated content".

This tool only re-crawls. It removes nothing. If the live page still shows your information, the request fails, and no amount of resubmitting changes that. Run it the day after the site takes the page down or edits it. If it gets rejected, go back to the site owner. A rejection here means the source never actually changed.

The legal route, and who it's really for

Report Content for Legal Reasons opens with a "Create a request" button that lands you in the legal troubleshooter. It starts by asking you to "Select the Google product where the content you are reporting appears", then whether the issue is a legal one or a policy violation. Note what it tells you next: "You must submit a separate report for each Google product where the content appears". Search, Maps and YouTube are three separate filings.

This is where a court order goes. Getting the order is separate work in a real court, not a Google process. Google states the ceiling on the same page: "We can restrict access to content that appears in Google products and services, but that content may still exist elsewhere on the web." An order sitting in your inbox does nothing at Google until you file it here yourself.

Right to be Forgotten is European data protection law, and it needs four things: the URLs, "A description of how the content is related to you, and why we should delist it", "The search query for which you'd like us to delist the content, i.e., your full name", and a contact email. Even granted, it stays narrow. "We'll only delist content from search results for queries related to your name", and Google delists from "versions of Google's search results for countries applying European data protection law." There's no US equivalent, and a searcher in the US still sees the result.

Put a date in the calendar, and know what none of this fixes

Set a reminder two weeks out and run the identical searches again. A removal is bound to one address. The page you got delisted stays delisted, and a result that reappears is almost always a new URL needing a brand new request. Results about you tells you when it matches something, but it removes nothing on its own, and an empty "To review" tab looks exactly like being clean.

Google publishes no decision turnaround for any of these routes. With notifications on you get a match notification within a few hours, and a legal request comes back with an email confirmation carrying a reference number. Nothing else is promised. Anyone quoting you a number of days for a Google decision invented it. If Google emails asking for clarification, answer it. An unanswered question stalls the request indefinitely.

A denial on a newspaper, a government site or a university page usually isn't arguable. The answer there is the publisher or a court order, not a second submission. If you were denied for no qualifying category, re-read the doxxing aggregation prong before you resend the same claim. And here's the honest answer to the big question: no Google process makes your whole name quiet. What does that is deletion at the source, plus better pages of your own outranking what's left.

The list is the job

File the Google requests yourself. They're free and you can start tonight. When the list runs longer than an evening, or the pages ranking on your name are the ones Google won't touch, our Personal Reputation Management service is $2,488, one time. We work the whole first page: the removals we can file, the site owners we have to write to, and accurate pages built for whatever stays.

Have us do it.

See the scope, price, and next steps for the help this guide describes.

See the service

You should have a say in what the internet says about you.

One result may be the immediate problem. If you need help with the wider picture, explore our work for creators, professionals, and justice-impacted people. You can start with one service.

See how we help people manage what comes up online

Explore your options

Every guide we publish is free and ungated. Browse all of them, see what we do and what it costs, or read why we built this company.

Written by Drew Chapin, who ran all of this on his own name first.