How to remove a page from Google search results

Open Removals in Search Console and click “New Request”. The option “Temporarily remove URL” blocks the address from Google’s results, and Google says the block lasts about six months. A second option, “Clear snippet in search”, keeps the page in results and clears its description until the page is crawled again.

Only a verified owner of the Search Console property can make the request. The page itself is untouched: the block applies to Google’s results and nothing else.

A temporary block runs out, so the page needs one of the three methods Google names.

• Remove or update the content. Google calls this the most secure way, because it keeps the information out of other search engines as well.
• Add a noindex tag. The page stays on the site for visitors and leaves Google’s results. Our guide to pages excluded by a noindex tag shows where the tag sits.
• Protect the page with a password. Visitors with access can read it, and Google’s crawler cannot.

Google’s instruction is direct: do not use robots.txt to block the page. A robots.txt rule stops Google reading a page, and a page Google cannot read can still be listed when other sites link to it. The rule also hides a noindex tag from Google, so the tag is never seen. Our guide to pages indexed though blocked by robots.txt covers that case.

Google notes that all variations of an address have to be covered: the same page reached with different capital letters or with extra parameters is a separate address to a search engine. Check which versions appear by searching Google for the page’s title in quotation marks.

1. Make the Removals request, so the page disappears from results quickly.
2. Apply the permanent method on the page itself.
3. Leave the request in place. By the time it expires, Google has crawled the page and recorded the permanent change.

A page that is out of date and still visited is usually better updated or redirected than removed. Removal discards whatever visits and links the page had earned. Our guide to redesigning a website without losing rankings explains how a redirect carries them to a new address.