Deleting a Resource

The Removals tool enables you to temporarily block pages from Google Search results on sites that you own, see a history of removal requests from both property owners and non-owners, and also to see any URLs on your site that were reported as containing adult content.

Removals report divided into 3 main sections:

• Temporary removals
• Outdated content
• SafeSearch filtering requests

Temporary removals is a way to remove specific content on your site from Google Search results 

For example, if you have a URL that you need to take off Google Search quickly you should use this tool.A successful requests last only 6 month.When you log in in Google Search Console you will find the removals report in the navigation bar .Select the temporary removals than click “new requests”.You have two types of requests available: temporarily remove the URL will block the URL from Google Search results for about 6 month.This will clear the cached copy of the page.

Use this option as a quick first step when permanently blocking the page from Google search results.

Outdated content – this section provides information on removals requests made through the public outdated content tool which can be used for anyone to update search results showing information that is no longer present on the page.

There are two types of requests :

• Outdated cache removals
• Outdated page removals

Permanent removals 

For a permanent removal:

• Return either a 404 or 410
• Block access to the content
• Use a noindex meta tag

Delete resources

Follow these steps to delete resources. Note: you cannot restore deleted resources.  

1. Switch to an administrator account. This will open the Google Admin console.
2. From the Admin console Home page, go to Buildings and resources.
3. Under Resource management click Open.
4. Hover over the resource and click Delete resource.

Temporarily block URLs on your site

Follow this procedure to temporarily block a URL on your site from appearing in Google Search results.

When to use this tool

• You have a URL on a Search Console property that you own, and you need to take it off Google Search quickly. You must take additional steps to remove the URL permanently. The URL to remove can be for a web page or an image.
• You’ve updated the page to remove sensitive content, and want Google to reflect the change in Search results.

When not to use this tool

• To block a page on a property that you don’t own. See If you don’t control the page.
• To permanently remove a URL from Search. Use the Removals tool as part of this process to remove a URL permanently. This tool is just one step in the process.
• To remove content from the internet. This tool removes content only from Google Search.
• To remove results from other search engines. This tool removes content only from Google Search.
• To clean up cruft, like old pages that 404. If you recently changed your site and now have some outdated URLs in the index, Google’s crawlers will see this as we recrawl your URLs, and those pages will naturally drop out of our search results. There’s no need to request an urgent update.
• To address crawl errors from your Search Console account. The blocking tool blocks URLs from Google’s search results, not from your Search Console account. You don’t need to manually remove URLs from this report; they will drop out naturally over time.
• To “start from scratch” with your site. If you’re worried that your site might have a manual action, or you want to start with a clean slate after purchasing a domain from someone else, we recommend filing a reconsideration request letting us know what you’re worried about and what has changed.
• To take your site “offline” after being hacked. If your site was hacked and you want to get rid of bad URLs that got indexed, use the URL blocking tool to block any new URLs that the hacker created—for example, http://www.example.com/buy-cheap-cialis-skq3w598.html. But we don’t recommend blocking your entire site, or blocking URLs that you’ll eventually want indexed. Instead, clean up the hacking and let us recrawl your site.
• To get the right “version” of your site indexed. Many sites make the same HTML content or files available via different URLs. If you do this, and don’t want duplicates to appear in search results, review our recommended methods of canonicalization. Don’t use the URL tool to block the URLs you don’t want in search results. It won’t keep your favorite version of a page; instead, could remove all versions (http/https and www/non-www) of a URL.

Block a URL

Very important notes:

• A successful request lasts only about six months. After that, your information can appear on Google search results.
• Blocking a URL does not prevent Google from crawling your page, only from showing it in Search results. When you request a temporary block of a URL, Google can continue to crawl the URL if it exists and isn’t blocked by another method (such as a noindex tag). Because of this, it is possible that your page can be crawled and cached again before you remove or password-protect your page, and can appear in search results after your temporary blackout expires.
• If your URL is unreachable by Google (404, 502/3) when you use this tool, it will assume that the page is gone, and your block request will expire. Any page found at that URL at a later time will be considered a new page that can appear in Google Search results.

To temporarily block a URL from Google Search, or update Google’s view when a page has changed:

1. The URL must be in a Search Console property that you own. If it’s not, follow these instructions instead.
2. Open the Removals tool.
3. Select the Temporary Removals tab.
4. Click New Request.
5. Select either Temporarily remove URL or Clear cached URL:
   • Temporarily remove URL
   • Clear cached URL
6. Select Next to complete the process. The request usually takes up to a day to process, and is not guaranteed to be accepted. Check back to see the status of the request. If your request has been denied, click Learn more to learn why.
7. Submit additional removal requests for any additional URLs that might point to the same page, as well as any variations in URL casing that your server handles. For example, all the following URLs might point to the same page:
   • example.com/mypage
   • example.com/MyPage
   • example.com/page?1234
8. To make your removal permanent, read the next sections.

Find the correct URL for blocking

Here’s how to find the correct URL to submit to the tool in order to block it in Search results.

Web page URL

Image URL

Make your removal permanent

The Removals tool provides only a temporary removal of about six months. To remove content or a URL from Google search permanently:

1. Take one of the following actions to remove the page permanently:
   • Remove or update the content on your site (images, pages, directories) and make sure that your web server returns either a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) HTTP status code. Non-HTML files (like PDFs) should be completely removed from your server.
   • Block access to the content, for example by requiring a password.
   • Indicate that the page should not be indexed using the noindex meta tag. This is less secure than the other methods.
   • Do not use robots.txt as a blocking mechanism.
2. If you blocked the page before removing your content permanently (step 1), unblock and then reblock the page. This clears the page from the index, if it was recrawled after blocking.

Cancel a request

If you want to cancel your temporary block from search results:

1. Open the Removals tool.
2. Find your request in the history table.
3. Click the menu button next to the request and select Cancel request.

See history of removal requests

You can see a history of all current and expired removal requests for your site that were made in the past 6 months.