Removing URLs from Google Search [Easy Tutorial]

Most SEO practices aim to get websites to the top of Google’s search results. However, sometimes website owners want to do the opposite – they want to remove their web pages from Google’s search results.

This can happen when the content on a website is outdated, there are identical copies of the same content, or if some pages have sensitive personal information that shouldn’t be shown.

Whatever the reason, you can quickly remove web pages from Google by following the steps in this article. Excited to learn how? Let’s get started with the easy tutorial!

4 Ways to Remove URLs from Google Search

Usually, website owners want their web pages to appear on SERP (Search Engine Results Page). But sometimes, deindexing or removing URLs from Google search is necessary.

Here are several ways to remove URLs from Google search that you can follow:

Directly Delete Content

When you delete a page, it will show an error message “404 not found.” However, your URL will be permanently removed from the index after Googlebot recrawls it.

Use Google Search Console Remove URLs

The Removals feature in Google Search Console will help you easily remove URLs from Google search results. But remember, this tool can only hide your website pages temporarily or for a short period.

The steps to remove URLs from search results using the Removals feature are:

• Log in to your Google Search Console account.
• Click on “Search property” to select the property with the URL you want to remove from Google’s index.

• Click “New Request” to submit the URL removal request.

• Choose the option “Remove all URLs with this prefix” if you want to hide all URLs that match the prefix you specify in the “Enter URL” column.

• Click “Next” and wait for a few days for Google to process your URL blocking request.

• Once the request is accepted, the URL will be removed from search results for approximately 6 months or until you submit a new URL indexing request.

Use Google Remove Outdated Content

What if you don’t have access to request URL removal from Google search?

Google Search Console also provides the “Remove Outdated Content” tool for users who find outdated content. With this feature, you need to enter the URL you want to remove from Google search results.

The steps to remove URLs from Google search using the “Remove Outdated Content” tool are:

• Click on the “New request” button as shown in the image.

• Enter the URL of the webpage you want to remove and click “Submit” to request removal.

Remove URLs from Google Search with Yoast SEO

Want a more practical way to remove URLs from Google search?

You can perform deindexing using the Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast is a top-notch SEO plugin that allows you to add the Noindex tag easily.

The Noindex tag instructs Googlebot not to index a webpage. Thus, URLs set with this tag won’t appear in search engine results.

To remove URLs from Google search using Yoast SEO, follow these steps:

• After installing the Yoast SEO plugin, open the webpage you want to block from search results.
• Scroll down until you find the editor section, which contains various options.

• In the “Allow search engines to show this Post in search results?” and “Should search engines follow links on this Post?” settings, select “No.”
• After making these configurations, click “Update” to save the changes.

Deleting URLs from Google Search is simple, isn’t it?

There are various ways to remove specific pages from Google search results. Just pick the method that you find the easiest and most effective.

But, the easiest way is to use Google Search Console directly, as it’s the tool connected to Google’s search engine.

This tutorial article aims to help you hide content from Google that shouldn’t be shown in search results.

Good luck!