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: "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. 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, and 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 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. Copy the exact address out of the browser bar for every hit, not the link off the results page. Google reviews only the URLs you submit and doesn't go looking for the rest, so 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, and 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, which is who you write to when the owner never answers.

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. If the owner deletes the page or edits 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, and matches appear in the "To review" tab. Open a result, 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

The personal content removal form is reached 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?" with 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. Quote the exact line on the page that carries one of those rather than describing what the page is about.

Doxxing is a second route with two conditions, and either one on its own is enough: your personal info alongside "explicit or implicit threats against you (or calls for others to harm or harass you)", or "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, because 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, and go back to the site owner if it gets rejected, because a rejection here is telling you the source never actually changed.

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, so 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; 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, and anyone quoting you a number of days for a Google decision invented it. If Google emails asking for clarification, answer it, because an unanswered question stalls the request indefinitely.

A denial on a newspaper, a government site or a university page usually isn't arguable, and the answer there is the publisher or a court order rather than a second submission. If you were denied for no qualifying category, re-read the doxxing aggregation prong before you resend the same claim. And the honest version of 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, because they're free and you can start on them 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, and 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.

Everything above, filed for you, chased for you, and reported back. One flat fee.

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

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