Removing personal information from Google is the process of asking Google to drop the results that expose your contact details, identifiers, or images, and then opting out at the data brokers publishing them. Google removes the result and never the source page, so the work runs on two fronts, and the broker side has to be repeated.
You Googled yourself and what you found is unsettling. Your home address. Your phone number. Your age. Maybe your family members' names. All of it sitting right there in search results for anyone to find.
The good news is you have options. There are concrete steps you can take to remove your personal information from Google and from the websites where it originates. This guide walks through both.
How your information got there
Your personal information does not appear on Google by accident. It flows through several sources.
Public records. Property deeds, voter registrations, court filings, and business registrations are public by law in most states. These records contain your name, address, and other personal details. Our remove public records from Google guide covers this category.
Data brokers. Sites like Spokeo, WhitePages, BeenVerified, TruePeopleSearch, and dozens of others aggregate information from public records, social media, purchase history, and other sources into complete profiles. They sell this data or make it freely available online. The FTC found that just nine major brokers held data on virtually every U.S. consumer, with some profiles containing as many as 3,000 data points per person.
Social media. Default privacy settings on most platforms are permissive. Information you share can be scraped and republished elsewhere.
Website registrations. WHOIS records, forum accounts, and online purchases can all leak personal information.
Google indexes all of it. Google does not create this information. It finds and organizes it. Addressing the problem means working on two fronts: remove content from Google's index and remove it from the source websites.
How far each route reaches
Four routes exist, and confusing them is the single most common reason people think a cleanup failed. Three of them touch Google. Only one touches the page.
| Route | What it covers | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| Results About You | Search results exposing your phone number, email address, or home address. | It hides the result, not the page. Your listing stays live on the site that published it. |
| Google removal request | Government ID and bank numbers, medical records, handwritten signatures, non-consensual explicit images, doxxing content, images of minors. | Accurate public records, news coverage, and anything you published about yourself. |
| Data broker opt-out | Your profile on the broker that published it, which is usually the page Google indexed in the first place. | Brokers re-scrape public records, so an opt-out is a maintenance task rather than a fix. |
| Source-site request | The page itself, when the site agrees to take it down or add a noindex tag. | It needs the publisher's cooperation, and outside the categories above nothing obliges them to give it. |
Google's removal tools
Google has expanded what it will remove from search results. These tools are free.
Results About You
Google's Results About You tool lets you monitor and request removal of search results containing your personal contact information. Access it through your Google account settings. It shows you what Google has found about you and gives you a direct path to request removal.
This tool works for phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and other contact information. It does not work for information you published yourself on your own website or social media.
Content removal request form
Google's content removal request form handles a broader range. Find it at support.google.com/websearch under "Remove information from Google."
What Google will remove: Government ID numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, images of handwritten signatures, and medical records. Non-consensual explicit images, including deepfakes. Doxxing content published with intent to harm. Images of minors.
What Google will not remove: Accurate public records. News articles about you. Content you published yourself. Information that is embarrassing but not a safety risk.
Google removes the result from its search index. It does not remove it from the internet. The content still exists on the original website. For complete removal, you need to address the source.
Data broker opt-outs
Data brokers are the largest source of personal information on the open web. Opting out of these sites is tedious but effective. Here are the major ones.
Spokeo. Requires your profile URL and email for verification. Removal takes a few days. One of the more cooperative brokers.
WhitePages. Find your listing, verify your identity, submit the request. Our WhitePages removal guide has step-by-step instructions.
BeenVerified. Search for your record, verify via email, request removal. Our BeenVerified removal guide walks through the process.
TruePeopleSearch. Find your listing, click "Remove This Record", verify via email. Our TruePeopleSearch removal guide has the details.
FastPeopleSearch. Similar flow. Find your record, request removal, confirm. Our FastPeopleSearch removal guide covers the steps.
Intelius, PeopleFinder, USSearch, Instant Checkmate. Each has its own opt-out process. Some are simple. Some are deliberately confusing. Some require mailing a physical letter with a copy of your ID. They want you to send them more personal information to remove your personal information. Our Intelius removal guide covers that family of sites.
There are over 100 data broker sites operating in the U.S. Manually opting out of all of them takes 20 to 30 hours for the initial round. You will need to repeat the process periodically because many brokers re-add your information from public record sources. Set a quarterly calendar reminder.
Social media privacy settings
Your social media accounts may be leaking more information than you realize.
Facebook. Settings > Privacy. Set future posts to Friends. Review your Activity Log. Restrict who can search for you by email and phone number. Turn off search engine indexing.
Instagram. Switch to private if you do not need public visibility. Remove your phone number and email from your profile. Review tagged photos.
LinkedIn. Settings > Visibility. Restrict what the public can see. Hide your connections list. Remove your phone number from contact info.
X (Twitter). Settings > Privacy and Safety. Protect your posts to make your account private. If staying public, remove your phone number and location from your profile.
WHOIS privacy
If you have ever registered a domain name, your registration information may be publicly available in WHOIS records. This includes your name, address, phone number, and email.
Most domain registrars offer WHOIS privacy protection for free or a small annual fee. Enable this on every domain you own. If your personal WHOIS data is already exposed, enabling privacy protection updates future lookups. Cached versions may persist on third-party sites and need separate removal requests.
Old accounts and forgotten profiles
Think about every website you have ever created an account on. Old forums, dating profiles, Myspace, early social networks, gaming accounts. These accounts may still be public and indexed by Google.
Search for your name plus common platforms. Try your name plus "forum" or "profile." You will likely find accounts you forgot existed. For accounts you can access, log in and delete them or remove personal information. For accounts you cannot access, use account recovery or contact platform support. Under GDPR and increasingly under U.S. state privacy laws, you have the right to request deletion of your data.
Ongoing monitoring
Removing your personal information is an ongoing project. Data brokers re-scrape public records. New websites aggregate old data. Content gets copied and republished.
Set up Google Alerts for your full name, phone number, address, and any other personal details. Set delivery to "as it happens."
Schedule quarterly audits. Every three months, Google yourself from an incognito window and review the first three pages of results. Check the major data broker sites.
Consider ongoing monitoring. Services exist that watch for your information and submit opt-out requests on your behalf. Our content removal service handles this for clients who do not want to manage it themselves.
When to get professional help
The DIY approach works for simple cases. Data broker listings, old social media accounts, and basic Google removal requests are manageable with patience and persistence.
Professional help becomes valuable when you are dealing with high-volume exposure across many sites, when content appears on authoritative sites that resist removal, or when you do not have 20 to 30 hours to dedicate. A content removal service knows which approach works for each platform.
For court records specifically, see our court record removal guide. For mugshots, see our mugshot removal guide. For making your address unsearchable, see our address removal guide.
The most important thing is to start. Every piece of personal information you remove reduces your exposure. Pick the most egregious exposures first and work from there. If you want help, tell us about your situation.
Related resources
- Make your address unsearchable. Specific steps for address removal.
- Remove from TruePeopleSearch. Step-by-step opt-out.
- Remove from BeenVerified. Step-by-step opt-out.
- Remove from Whitepages. Step-by-step opt-out.
- Remove from FastPeopleSearch. Step-by-step opt-out.
- Remove from Intelius. Step-by-step opt-out.
- Remove court records from Google. Legal record removal.
- Content removal services. Professional removal and suppression.