How to Remove Your Name from Google

It is a minefield when trying to remove your information from Google. There are many different scenarios Google is willing to take action. For example: you can report content for legal reasons

First thing to remember when pursuing to remove your name from Google search results. Almost 99.9% of Google search results come from websites that are owned by other people and not Google.

Second important factor to keep in mind is, don’t trust SEO Gurus or fly-by-night reputation management companies because almost all of them use techniques that are against Google Guidelines when managing your reputation online.

Basically, you want your details removed, not spam Google making things even worse. On this page you’ll find insights and links for removing your name from Google because:

Life is funny to a degree that removing your own name from Google becomes a must because it can cause heartache, literally. For example:

• I’ve been arrested (but found not guilty) and yet my court case details are still online on this or that website.
• I’ve been involved in a matter when I was young, and yet, after 30 years my grandchildren found my information, can we delete my name from Google?
• I’ve been found guilty of fraud and have paid my dues and served my sentence. Can we delete or bury results in Google?
• I posted an image of myself how can I delete it from Google images.
• My daughter’s pictures are posted online how can we delete it?
• My son’s friend has posted bullying content about him, how can we remove this from Google?

All is Not Lost

You have many option regarding content removal. First visit Remove your personal information from Google.

While ago, I’ve created the below video which highlights basics of removing your name from Google (insights you can still find useful).

Remember, unless your name is on Google’s own products (YouTube, Google Docs, Google Maps etc.) Google grabs information from the publicly available internet (other websites) and stores those details it in its own servers. Meaning, almost all of the information brought to you by Google’s web search engine is actually coming from other websites and not from Google itself.

That means, the best way to approach removing content is to get in touch with the website who posted your content, and get them to delete it.

Depending on the country or continent you live in, different laws, protections and procedures apply for removing a name from Google. For example: if you are a lucky citizen of a country within European Union, then simply head out to next link and begin the process of right to be forgotten with EU Privacy Removal because:

In May 2014, a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (C-131/12, 13 May 2014) found that certain people can ask search engines to remove specific results for queries that include their name, where the interests in those results appearing are outweighed by the person’s privacy rights.

Knowing that, you need to ask yourself IF the content (name, images, videos etc.) are on websites that is not part of Google Products (such as Google Images YouTube Google Docs etc.) because these require different approaches for removing a name. But remember, Google is a business which must also adhere to governing laws.

Step 1 Remove Information for Legal Reasons

Fortunately, the law protects you and everyone else using Google. For example: if your financial information is in Google results for the world to see, then, Google will treat that differently. Above all else, Google has removal policies about what it will and what I won’t remove. Legal issues are considered very seriously by Google, and this is the Tool to use (simply select the Google Product and follow the instructions).

Legal policies for YouTube.

Step 2 Removing Information from Normal Web Search

This out of all is the most common type of questions we receive “how do I remove my name from Google?” “I see bad reviews for my business can you help us remove it from Google?” the bad news is, Google wants you to contact the website where your details are published on, and then try to get them to remove it.

If you need to follow this approach, then do NOT email the website owner asking him or her for deleting your information from their website because 99% of times they won’t delete it (in fact, we found that they actually make things even worse when you contact them).

Instead begin your research about the website/s in question by conducting a whois search (WhoIs search for Australian domains) to find postal address of the business.

Then, you can send them a formal request. I’ve created a more detailed blog post explain more options here how to remove content from Google.

Step 3 Push Down Results So Its Buried

This is often called reputation management and it can be accomplished easily if you understand how Google rankings work. Basically, you can by using Google rankings itself outrank the current results it shows. The process is quite easy.

Once again, word of caution about those reputation management service providers who usually do more harm managing your reputation than clear it up for you (usually after they charge you thousands of dollars for the services which is usually techniques that  Google frowns upon and should be avoided at all costs).

For example, some of these reputation management services hire poor quality article writers with bad English to pump out low quality written articles trying to out-rank other websites. The end result may be even worse than before you used these reputation companies (some of them even Guarantee removals of names from Google) don’t be fooled with such BS claims because Google doesn’t make billions of $’s if others could easily hack their servers to remove results (it doesn’t work like that).

Remember, you could easily manage your own name (or other search terms) shown in Google search results by following simple techniques taught by RankYa. Be active as Google results usually stay around for a long time if the unwanted results aren’t deleted.

You Play by the Rules? And Still No Luck?

Here’s the fact: the results shown in Google are your details (its your name, its your photo, its your details, this is your life) that means, a simple contact to the website owner who has published your details should get it taken down. But, if you’ve tried that approach with no luck, that should make you realize that you are living in internet world (cross borders seems to make everyone think that they can just publish anything, about anyone).

And you should realize that, search engines who link to your information usually don’t want to deal with it when you want it removed for general reasons. Its perfectly understandable because search engines store millions of web documents and they can not handle all the removal requests if its within their Terms.

Remember that if you are the website owner and want to remove your own URL’s from Google search results (perhaps outdated content you no longer wish to show in Google), then you use the remove URL tool as detailed here

Hire RankYa, I can navigate through the minefield so that the internet skies become sunny again. Basically, whether its to contact Google or the website owners on your behalf or to control Google search results, trust RankYa’s over a decade of online experience.