Removing content about you from Google Search: which request applies

01Delisting is not deletion

Google's help page on private information says: Google can only remove things from Google Search results. Its page on site owners adds: Even if Google takes the website or picture off from our search result, the page is still there.

02Which request applies

Policy removals apply globally. Legal removals are judged under one country's law and usually restricted to it. Both paths may be used for the same content, but must be filed separately.

Every form takes specific page addresses, and Google reviews only those addresses.

03Contact details

For an address, phone number or email, Results about you is quicker: enter your name and the details, and each match can be sent for removal.

• Information you could remove yourself, on your own blog or profile, is refused.
• Pages owned by schools, government bodies or newspapers are not removed.
• Professional details posted to harm you go on the detailed form.

04Sexual imagery, real and fabricated

Google says this route applies whether the content is real or fake, and covers three situations.

1. Imagery shared without your consent, or consented to but not commercialised by you.
2. Fabricated sexual or nude content, sometimes called Deepfakes, where you are identifiable and it was shared without consent.
3. Results tying your name or handle to pornographic sites unconnected to you.

Google says it tries to remove duplicates here as standard. Where the recording is your own, a copyright request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can also reach the host.

05Doxxing and pay-for-removal sites

For doxxing, Google will consider a page pairing your personal information with threats or calls to harass you, or aggregating a significant amount of personal information without a legitimate purpose.

06When the page is already gone

If the owner removed or edited the material, Google says it drops out of Search through normal updating, and the Refresh Outdated Content tool speeds that up. It also covers an image no longer at its address.

07Legal removal requests

Where its policies do not cover the content, Google's Legal Help Centre flow asks for the product, then the ground.

08The EU and UK right to be forgotten

The right was established by the Court of Justice on 13 May 2014 in Case C-131/12, Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Espanola de Proteccion de Datos and Mario Costeja Gonzalez. Google's test is whether the information is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive, and whether a public interest keeps it available.

It now sits in Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation, the right to erasure, on grounds including that the data are no longer necessary for the purpose they were collected for. Article 17(3) carves out freedom of expression. The same article applies in the UK.

How far it reaches

Google delists only for queries related to your name, across European Google Search domains, and uses location signals for users it believes are in your country. Consistent with the 2019 Court of Justice judgment, it does not apply these delistings outside the EU.

09Start at the source

Google's own guidance puts this first: talk to the website owner, because they can take the page down. Removing the source page is the only step that clears every engine.

10Checking, refusals and limits

To check, search the exact address and the queries that surfaced it. Results about you shows each request's status.

Google notifies decisions by email, with a brief explanation where it declines a European privacy request, and says you may then ask a local data protection authority to review it. In the UK the Information Commissioner's Office expects a complaint to the organisation first.

What no request reaches

• Mirrors and scrapers that already copied the page; each address needs its own request.
• Copies passed by direct link or messaging, which never touch search.
• Stored copies and descriptions, until Google recrawls or you use the refresh tool.
• Other engines. Microsoft warns that reporting a concern to Bing may not result in removal.