How to Remove a Website From Google Search Results

Written by Web Hosting Expert

April 25, 2022
How to Remove a Website From Google Search Results

There are many reasons why someone would want to remove their content from Google. Whether it's because the content is old, badly-made, or it may portray you negatively, everyone has that one website or video that they want to delete.

And even though the statement "the Internet is forever" is pretty accurate, there are ways you can remove content from the Internet, specifically a website from Google.

So, in today's article, we'll go over the most common reasons why someone wants their website removed, how you can achieve this, what happens when you do this, and more.

What Is Search Engine Indexing?


Search engine indexing is the process of collecting, parsing, and storing data so that search engines can provide search results instantaneously. Search engine indexing is how search engines organize information before making it available to users. It makes searching and getting information from different sources available in one place.

Search engines like Google use an inverted index or reverse index to search through information from individual pages and index it properly. Inverted indexes use tokenization, which involves indexing content by summarizing it to a few keywords. And when a customer googles a keyword, the relevant websites are shown with the appropriate content.

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How to Check if Your URL Is Indexed in Google?


The easiest way to check if your URL is indexed in Google is by using a couple of the extensions that Google offers. Some of those extensions include:

Google Search Operators

These are special characters and commands that offer advanced search capabilities. So, to check if your URL is indexed, you can use either:

If Google displays your website after using either search operator, your URL is indexed. If nothing shows up, that means that your URL is not indexed.

If your URL is indexed, the results will look like this:

Google Search Operator

If not, it will look like this:

Google Search Operators2

Google Search Console

A free tool that Google offers where users can check their index status and improve the visibility of their website. To use Search Console, first, you need to add and verify your website in Search Console. After doing this, you can access numerous reports and statistics that Search Console provides. Once you've appropriately selected your website, you should be able to see a box with the text "Inspect any URL in," followed by your site's URL. You can insert the URL of the page you want to check in that box. If it's indexed, it will look like this:

Google Search Console

If not, it will look like this:

Google Search Console2

URL Profiler

This is a tool that is used to analyze and extract bulk data for both your URL and domain. You can use it for other SEO tasks as well, like audits, backlink analysis, etc.

Ahrefs

This is an SEO software that offers a set of tools for keyword research, link building, rank tracking, etc. You can use Ahrefs' Rank Tracker to check and track your keywords and see which ones bring in the most web traffic.

Ahrefs' Rank Tracker

What Happens When You Remove Your Website From Google?


Removing your website from Google only removes it from Google itself. So, results for your website may appear on other search engines like Bing or Yahoo.

Also, Google can re-index the search for your website. Google does this frequently as a means to display the most accurate results when users search specific keywords. Additionally, Google can keep a cache of the website.

If you only remove the search without deleting the site itself, images, videos, and URL, Google is likely to re-index your website and show it in the search result. So, for the complete removal of a website, you will have to delete every detail relevant to your site, from search results to every piece of content.

Removing a Website From Google: What Could Be the Reasons?


Outdated Content

You may want to remove a website with outdated information regarding your business, products, etc. Or maybe you have an old website that you don't want to update or remodel but are not going to use anymore

Duplicated Content

You may want to remove a website that contains the same information as yours and targets the same content and keywords that you use. Duplicate content can lead to SEO cannibalization, where more than one site targets your keywords and content, resulting in low rankings and performance of the websites involved

Private/Protected/Secured Content

If you or someone else has a website that contains private information and that information becomes public either by accident or by someone else's intent, you may want to remove the website altogether to protect your privacy

Malicious Content

You may want to remove a website that has content that could harm you or your business or it has content that spreads a false message and misinformation about you

Hacked Content

Anyone who visits your website could be exposed to a cybersecurity risk if a third party has hacked it or has placed malware on your content. You should delete the website or remove it from search results to protect your customers or viewers from viruses and other types of malware

Leaked Content

You may want to delete a website that was made public prematurely by accident or otherwise. It may contain information about new products, a new business, collaboration, etc. that are not supposed to be known yet

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Easiest Ways to Remove Your Website From Google Search


Lock and rename your website

This is an easy way to prevent viewers from accessing your website. Renaming your site is a pretty straightforward process. You can do this by going to your website's dashboard, going to the site icon, and clicking "rename site." After, save the changes, and you're done. Putting a password on a site can be done by logging into your website's web editor. After, you go to the "Pages" area and select the page on which you want to put a password. Then you open the page's settings, enable the password feature option, type in the password you want, and save the changes. And although this method doesn't delete your site, it still blocks anyone from seeing the content it contains, and it gives you time to start the removal process.

Deleting your website through your host

You can delete your website and its contents by contacting your web hosting provider. Each hosting provider has a different approach and different steps for this process, so it's best to contact customer support to be sure about what exactly you need to do

URL removal request

To remove your website from Google search, you need to file a URL removal request with Google. This request will temporarily eliminate your website from search results. Your URL will be deleted from search results for about six months if it is removed. After your content is re-listed, you can always file another removal request. You'll need to log into Google Search Console to submit a URL removal request. After submitting your request, Google will review it and inform you of its decision. And even if your URL is successfully removed from Google search results, the URL is not marked as spam or added to a blocklist. Also, your website's SEO is still viable even after the URL is removed. After a while, Google deletes the websites that have filed removal requests from Google searches, but this can take some time as there are over 1.8 billion websites as of 2021.

Content removal request

To speed up the process of removing your site from Google search, you can file a content removal request to Google. In the first half of 2021 alone, the Russian government had submitted over 18 000 content removal requests, so they are pretty common and numerous. You can only file a content removal request if you are either the website owner or if you have deleted or changed the website. This request is also filed through the Google Search Console on the Outdated Content Removal Tool page. Before processing any requests for old content removal, Google sorts through them. Your request will most likely be processed within a few days, but you may check the status of your request at any moment in the Google Search Console. You can also cancel your removal request if you change your mind.

Wayback Machine

Even if you've deleted your website and content from the Internet and Google searches, it may be documented in the Wayback Machine if your website generated a lot of traffic. The Wayback Machine is a non-profit digital archive that stores around 330 billion web pages from different websites as of 2020, dating back to 1996. The size of this digital archive was 35 petabytes in 2020, making it quite massive. If the Wayback Machine has archived your website, Google may cache and re-index it, bringing it back into search results. You can see if your website is archived by going to archive.org/web/ and entering your URL. Any listings for your website will be displayed as a result of this. If your website is listed, you must email the Wayback Machine team at "[email protected]" to request that your URL be removed. Please remember that you must include your URL in your email to process your request.

Check if your website is deleted

After you have filed your requests and got an answer for Google, you should check if your website is still available. You can do this by checking:

  • If your URL appears in search results

  • If your web hosting provider has deleted your website

  • If Google has approved your content removal request

  • If you've removed all social media links to your website

  • If you deleted your Google My Business profile – if you had one for the deleted website

Stop Google from re-indexing the content

To do this, all you need to do is add the "noindex" tag to your website. This tag is a meta tag that you should place in the HTML code of your website, and when Google sees this tag on your website, it will stop including your website in its results. To add this tag to the URL, you need to access its source code, add this meta tag in the section as

 <meta name= "  mouse" content= "    noindex ">, and save the changes.
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Final Remarks


So, it's good to know that the Internet is not as permanent as we think. Well, at least for removing websites from Google searches, that is. There are a couple of ways you can do this, and they are not too challenging to complete. However, the process may take a while, as Google gets many removal requests, both for URL and content. So, if you want to remove your website from Google searches for whatever reason, make sure to follow the steps mentioned in this article and file the appropriate requests with Google.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Google have free web hosting?

Google doesn’t provide free hosting; however, they do provide PAAS (Platform As A Service), known as GAE (Google App Engine).

How web hosting can affect SEO?

If you choose a web hosting company that isn’t that good, your site will load more slowly for visitors. Besides providing a bad user experience for your visitors, search engines also penalize slow sites, which makes your rankings in results go down.

How do I produce high-quality content for my blog?

To create amazing content for your fitness blog, you will need to do proper research and take your time. Write fewer posts, but make sure that the ones you’ve written stand out.

Does a website need hosting?

Yes. In order for a site to be accessed by outside users, it needs to have website hosting.

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