How to Delete URLs from Google Search?

As a website owner, you must be aware of having a strong check and balance on your URLs. Conducting a site audit, adding new URLs, and deleting the ones not performing or affecting SEO should be part of your daily routine.

This reading will help you understand different types of URLs, which ones to remove, and ways of removing them. When I was new to my journey as a website owner, I made many mistakes dragging me down, and I wasn’t even aware of them, so I mentioned all the mistakes you need to avoid.

Understanding Different Types of URLs

There are many types of URLs. Before discussing the removal process in detail, let’s familiarise ourselves with the kinds of URLs.

Popular URL types

Generally, URLs are kept under these two categories.

• Absolute URL

These URLs contain complete information or the address of a webpage. They include the protocol type, subdomain, root domain, TLD, slug, and article permalink.

• Relative URL

Relative URLs only contain the article permalink or the path to that particular page, excluding the domain and other URL parts.

Function-based URL type

Based on function, URLs are divided into these three types.

• Canonical URLs

These URLs specify which version of a page search engines should focus on, helping to avoid duplicate content issues.

• Callback URLs

These URLs are web addresses that an application sends a request to after the completion of a certain task.

• Vanity URLs

These URLs are shorter forms of longer URLs. They are easy to remember, but specific tools are used to create them.

Types of URLs to Remove

Many different types of URLs need to be deleted from Google. Some of the common ones include:

Outdated Content

• If you have a URL with outdated or irrelevant content, it needs to be deleted. This specifically happens in e-commerce websites where the product is out of stock for a very long time or is totally discontinued by the owners.
• Likewise, too old blog posts with outdated content that cannot be amended as all the information has been replaced by the new.
• If you have incomplete pages or pages that are not yet ready for public viewing, remove them to avoid indexing issues, as they can be shown as search results.

Duplicate Content

If your website suffers from duplicate content issues, you should immediately remove the version you don’t want. Considering only a single canonical URL version will help in the improvement of ranking.

The same goes for the different versions of the same site. If your website is operating on https and it has an http version, then you should delete it or make it easy for search engines to crawl your site.

Sensitive Information

If your website has some pages containing your personal, sensitive or financial information, internal documents or proprietary information, you should consider removing all those URLs. If such information mistakenly goes into the hands of a hacker, you can face huge losses.

Staging or Testing URL

Any URL specifically created for the purpose of testing or staging should be removed from the site once it goes live. These pages unnecessarily make your site structure heavier and larger.

Checking if the URL is Indexed

Before you decide which URLs to remove, you must know whether they are indexed. Many SEO professionals use the site: to find out if a page is indexed. This necessarily doesn’t guarantee the actual indexation of a page, as pages shown on the site: might be canonicalized or redirected. This can lead to displaying content from other pages.

A better way is to check the index coverage report in the Google Search Console. This report provides complete information on how Google treats particular pages. Another way is to search for a full URL on Google to check its status.

Ways to Remove the URL

There are many ways to remove URLs from Google search results. They include:

• Removal of URLs via Google Search Console.
• Usage of txt file
• Google Outdated Content Removal Tool

Steps to remove URL using Google Search Console

First of all, log in to your Google Search Console. If you don’t have an account, make sure to sign in and link your website to the account.

Temporary Removal

• In your console, navigate to the removal section.
• Click on new request.
• Choose temporary remove URL
• Now enter the URL you want to remove and select the type of removal (i.e., temporary or clearing the cache).
• Now submit the request by clicking on “Submit”.

Permanent Removal

To remove the URL permanently, follow these steps.

• In your website CMS, go to the HTML
• Add a noindex nofollow tag into your webpage head section.
• Now, submit the page again for recrawling.
• Once recrawling is done. Google will automatically leave this page out.

You can also delete the page and redirect it using a 404 (Not Found) or 410(Gone) error. Make sure you use Google Search Console to track that particular URL status.

Usage of robots.txt file

You can also remove a URL by using robots.txt file. Follow these steps to remove the URL

• Create or locate your txt file. You can easily find it by putting /robots.txt in front of your website URL.
• Now, in your txt file, specifically mention the pages you don’t want Google to crawl. It can go something like this:

User-agent: Googlebot

Disallow: /path-to-page/

• Upload and save the txt file.
• Once your website is done crawling, go to Google Search Console and check if Google respects your uploaded file.

You need to keep in mind that pages blocked in robots.txt are not removed but just prevented from Google to crawl them.

Google Outdated Content Removal Tool

If you don’t have access to a website but find a page promoting harmful or spammy content, you can use the Google Outdated Content Removal Tool.

• Sign in or log in with your Google account.
• Search for “Remove URLs.”
• Submit your URL and click on “Request Removal.”
• Wait for Google to review your request, and if it is anything harmful or malicious, it will delete or temporarily hide the page from public view.

Removing Images from Google Search

If you want to remove an image from Google search, follow similar steps. The only difference is that you need to provide the link to that particular image.

In addition to all of these options, you can restrict access to that particular page or image. You can add HTTP authentication or add that URL to IP Whitelisting.

Prioritizing URL Removals

There are always high-priority tasks and tasks that you can delay a little bit.

• High Priority: URLs that threaten your ranking or have confidential information need to be removed on a priority basis.
• Medium Priority: URLs that target specific users or are built for particular purposes like staging, testing, portals or other intranet URLs.
• Low Priority: URLs that have duplicate content and are not damaging your site’s SEO.

Mistakes to Avoid

There are a few common mistakes made by SEO professionals while removing a URL. These include:

Humanly negligence

Even if you block a URL from Google to crawl, it is still possible to be showing in search results. A few possible reasons for this include:

• The page has some internal or external links, due to which it is still possible to find it.
• There is a high chance that your URL suffers from a “pending removal” request. It takes approximately from a few hours to a few days to fulfill your request.
• As Google allows you to remove the URL from search results for 6 months temporarily, there is a high possibility that it may have reappeared as a search result.
• It is highly possible that the URL you submitted might not be the correct one. Before submitting, it is suggested that you double-check it.
• The content should be deleted from your website if you are using Google Search Console’s URL removal tool.

Noindex in robots.txt

SEO professionals used noindex in robots.txt extensively to remove URLs, but Google never formally supported it. They have finally removed this feature or stopped supporting this practice. If a website is making use of it, then its ranking will only be affected.

Using nofollow attribute

Nofollow and noindex commonly get confused. They use them interchangeably; however, that is not the case. Search engines will deliberately leave out the pages from indexing where noindex is being implemented, while in nofollow, they will index it but will not follow the links on that page.

Removing URL when you are not the Owner

If you are not the website owner and want to remove the URL from someone’s website, there are ways to resolve this. This could possibly happen for many reasons.

• You found inappropriate information on a particular page. It could be hate speech, wrong information, spammy content or the presence of some personal information.
• You may find your content on someone’s website.

In any case, a few of the ways in which you can tackle this issue include:

• It’s better to inform the website owner about the concern. Politely explain the issue and possible circumstances. Before reaching out to the owner or to Google, it is highly suggested that you double-check the problems you have experienced.
• Due to one reason or another, you might not get in contact with the owner; you can post an official legal request to Google. You would need to provide supporting documents like copyright infringement or exposure of personal data to support your claim.
• You can also make use of Google’s Refresh Outdated Content Tool, which lets you request Google to take notice of outdated content. You can use this tool to ask for the search results for sites or photos that are no longer available to be updated.