Removing Personal content from Google Index
-
Hi everyone,
A user is complaining that her name is appearing in google search through our job ads site, so I removed such ads through Search Console, but the problem is not the ads anymore but our internal search results.
The ads are no longer live but our searches has been indexed by google back then, We have been manually taking over 500 pages that included such name but more and more keep coming through pagination, we haven't found a pattern yet so pretty much any search result might have contained such name.
We might get some legal issues here, did you guys got into anything similar before?
We have just set some rules so that this doesn't happen again, but still can't find a way to deal with this one.
Thanks in advance.
PD: Not sure if this is the right category to fit it.
-
Hello JoaoCJ,
My recommendation is to not allow internal search result pages to be indexed. You should block them from being accessed via the Robots.txt file and then request their removal from GSC. This is what Google recommends.
There are always exceptions to the rule. However, best practices is all I can provide without knowing more about the situation, such as whether those internal search pages are an important part of your taxonomy (rare) or are also receiving significant, high quality organic search traffic (also rare).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate content homepage - Google canonical 'N/A'?
Hi, I redesigned a clients website and launched it two weeks ago. Since then, I have 301 redirected all old URL's in Google's search results to their counterparts on the new site. However, none of the new pages are appearing in the search results and even the homepage has disappeared. Only old site links are appearing (even though the old website has been taken down ) and in GSC, it's stating that: Page is not indexed: Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user However, when I try to understand how to fix the issue and see which URL it is claiming to be a duplicate of, it says: Google-selected canonical: N/A It says that the last crawl was only yesterday - how can I possibly fix it without knowing which page it says it's a duplicate of? Is this something that just takes time, or is it permanent? I would understand if it was just Google taking time to crawl the pages and index but it seems to be adamant it's not going to show any of them at all. 55.png
Technical SEO | | goliath910 -
Can you use no-index to counter duplicate content across separate domains?
Hi Moz Community, I have a client who is splitting out a sub brand from a company website to its own domain. They have lots of content around the theme and they want to migrate most of the content out to the new domain, but they also wanted to keep that content on the main site as the main site gets lots of traffic. My question is, as they want search traffic to go to the new site, but want to keep the best content on the original site too, so it can be found in the nav, if they no-index identical content on main site and index content on the new site will they still be penalised for duplicate content? Our advice has been to keep the thematic content on both sites but make them different enough so they are not considered duplicate - we routinely write the same blog post in 50 different ways for them but their Head of Web asked if the no-index is a route, which means they don't need to pay for and wait for brand new content? They are comfortable in losing traffic until the new domain gets traction. In theory, if they are telling Google not to index or rank the main site content, the new site shouldn't be penalised but I'm not confident giving that advice as I've never been asked to do this before. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Algorhythm_jT0 -
How ask Google to de index scrapper sites?
While doing text Google searches for various keywords I have found two sites that have scrapped pages from my site which goes by an old URL of www.tpxcnex.com and a new URL of www.tpxonline.com www.folder.com is one of the sites and if you try to visit that site or any of the scrapped Google index listing, Chrome warns you not to. How can I ask Chrome to deindex www.folder.com or another scrapper site, or atleast deindex the URLs which have clearly scrapped my content?
Technical SEO | | DougHartline0 -
Can Google index the text content in a PDF?
I really really thought the answer was always no. There's plenty of other things you can do to improve search visibility for a PDF, but I thought the nature of the file type made the content itself not-parsable by search engine crawlers... But now, my client's competitor is ranking for my client's brand name with a PDF that contains comparison content. Thing is, my client's brand isn't in the title, the alt-text, the url... it's only in the actual text of the PDF. Did I miss a major update? Did I always have this wrong?
Technical SEO | | LindsayDayton0 -
How to remove the specific link from Google Listed Index?
I am working on SEO for an e-commerce client. When I search for brand name in the Google it displays the top link with tabular index of categories. Whereas I want to remove the category called Coffee from the tabular index because it redirecting to the Home page which is not relevant. For your ref. attached is the screenshot. pXjdaCH.png
Technical SEO | | mountain.penguine0 -
Why wont google Index this page?
A week ago i accidentally changed this page settings in my CMS to "disable & dont index" as i was going to replace this page with another, but this didnt happen, but i forgot to switch the settings back! http://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plans Anyhow in an effort to get it back up quickly i submitted in GWTs but its still not indexed. When i use several SEO on page checking tools it has the Meta Title data as "Form" and not the correct title. Any ideas please? Yours frustrated Ash
Technical SEO | | AshShep10 -
Quickest way to remove content from Google index?
We had some content on our own website indexed by Google and the content was changed later. But that content is still showing up in Google results. Of course because it was indexed. Its very important for us that content should not show up in Google. So how to remove that content quickly from Google Index? I know normally when it crawl again it will show new content. Google url removal tool or Google url fetch ? or anything else?
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Best way to handle indexed pages you don't want indexed
We've had a lot of pages indexed by google which we didn't want indexed. They relate to a ajax category filter module that works ok for front end customers but under the bonnet google has been following all of the links. I've put a rule in the robots.txt file to stop google from following any dynamic pages (with a ?) and also any ajax pages but the pages are still indexed on google. At the moment there is over 5000 pages which have been indexed which I don't want on there and I'm worried is causing issues with my rankings. Would a redirect rule work or could someone offer any advice? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:outdoormegastore.co.uk+inurl:default&num=100&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsl&filter=0&biw=1600&bih=809#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:outdoormegastore.co.uk+inurl%3Aajax&oq=site:outdoormegastore.co.uk+inurl%3Aajax&gs_l=serp.3...194108.194626.0.194891.4.4.0.0.0.0.100.305.3j1.4.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.SDhuslImrLY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=ff301ef4d48490c5&biw=1920&bih=860
Technical SEO | | gavinhoman0