Simple methods to remove your pages from Google's index

Apr 18, 2007 06:28 GMT  ·  By

Google is the best search engine on the Internet and you know it; but this isn't always a good thing. Imagine that Google is able to index all the information discovered on a certain website unless the webmaster sets separate rules for some of his files. Now, there is only one question: how can I remove my content from Google's index and avoid displaying it for users' searches. Usually, the best practice to avoid the indexing of your information by Google is to write certain rules in robots.txt and place it on your server.

But what if the files are already indexed on the search giant and you want to remove the entries? The company recently released a special function able to allow you to remove the indexed content straight from the Webmaster Tools. The new feature is displayed under the Diagnostic tab and is entitled URL Removals. After you select the option, click on the New Removal Request and configure your settings according to the format of your files.

"As always, the answer begins: it depends on the type of content that you want to remove. Our webmaster help center provides detailed information about each situation. Once we recrawl that page, we'll remove the content from our index automatically. But if you'd like to expedite the removal rather than wait for the next crawl, the way to do that has just gotten easier," Vanessa Fox sustained in a blog post.

As you know, the Webmaster Tools represent a suite of utilities designed to help webmasters organize and manage their websites easier. Because these actions are important for both users and the company, Google tries to keep the members up-to-date by releasing new functions and provide more power for the functions they use.