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How do I remove myself from the search engines?

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It was unwise of me to take part and put in my name in some guestbooks. I'd like to remove my information from the search results of the major search engines: Google, Yahoo and so forth. I tried in vain to contact the webmasters of those sites. I'm becoming fussier about that and it's getting more awkward as far as my profession is concerned. Would you please assist me in dealing with this problem?

Search engines are amazing. They've collected and indexed billions of pages of information out on the internet. And while we think of Google, Yahoo, MSN and other "name brand" search engines, the reality is that there are hundred of search engines that could all be indexing pages on the web.

Getting into the search engines is not terribly difficult. Getting out? The news is not good.

I'll be blunt: In my opinion, it's a lost cause. The search engines do have opportunities for webmasters to remove specific pages from the search results. However, it a) does have to be a page or an entire site, and b) they'll only do it at the request of the owner of the site.

On top of that there are many services and sites which take additional cached snapshots of web pages for historical records. Google, for example, often allows you to view a cached copy of a page, even if that page is no longer on line. The internet archive, archive.org, is another example of a site that keeps archive copies of web pages for historical archiving purposes.

So if you've left your information in a guest book, or a blog's comment form, and the search engines have scanned it ... you're pretty much out of luck.

Now, you can certainly contact all the webmasters of all the sites that you've left your information on, and ask them to remove what you posted. If they listen and do what you want (there's no guarantee there either), then eventually those pages will be updated on most of the search engines. I say most, because there's also no guarantee that all the search engines will update, or when. Once you're there, you might be there for a long, long time.

So ultimately I don't have an answer or an approach for you, other than to avoid things such as those guest books in the future.

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Article 9362 | Posted October 30, 2005

Recent Comments

Please let me know if this helps and I'd like to see if you guys have more feedback in regards to this problem... maybe other tools you'll discover?! Meanwhile, www.zallas.com seems to be the best solution...

Tarin

Posted by: Tarin at June 29, 2007 10:48 AM

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That service does not do what the original question asked. It does not REMOVE
anything from the search engine.

If that service works, all it does is bury the information lower in search
results. It's still quite findable.

Leo

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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at June 30, 2007 12:39 PM

Well, Leo, you're absolutely right, however you have not found another solution to this problem, have you?

My friend's girlfriend got into a big mess, which was aired on national TV. After that her name appeared in a few articles online and she was very embarassed to see that every time someone Googled her name... So, what's the solution for her??? Nothing that you proposed would help her... E-mail Google a dozen times - they are not going to remove the pages from the index... E-mail CNN, where the article shows, - they could care less...

I whitnessed this service "burry" the negative results far enough to the 3rd page, where no one even cares to look. She's happy, my friend is happy, everyone's happy... Isn't that the bottom line? You don't care if it's erased or not - you just don't want the embarassment... and if it doesn't show on the first page, 99% of the searchers will never find out about that article, website, or whatever it is.

Am I wrong? Tina, in the post above, has a similar problem with her phone number listed - I'm sure there's a similar solution for that...

Posted by: Tarin at July 5, 2007 10:30 AM

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Look at the title to the article: "How do I remove myself from the search
engines?" You're right, I've not found an answer, because as the article
states, I don't believe there is one.

"Burying" your information lower in the search results is NOT the same as
removing it. Depending on the situation burying it may not be anywhere near
what people are looking for. For example, a dedicated stalker or private
investigator would almost certainly look past page three of the results.

So while burying might be enough for some people, it's most definitely not
enough for many.

And it's not the answer to the question that I was asked.

Leo


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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at July 6, 2007 10:20 AM

I’ve tried the Google NAMEcleaner service above (http://www.zallas.com/remove-bad-search-engine-results-bad-press.html) and it successfully removed my company name from the first 17 pages or so (it’s changing almost daily…) from most of the search engines. Somehow, they all work similarly, but there are differences on ask.com for example… Basically, Leo, it pushes the results down so much, it’s just like removing the name from the search engines, so it kind of answers your question :). Sayonara

Posted by: Anthony at August 29, 2007 09:51 AM

Good tip, Anthony

Posted by: Bent Cardan at November 3, 2007 07:40 PM

I used this service - http://www.removeyourname.com/
They were the most affordable and professional service I found. They called me back within five minutes of my filling out their contact form. Zallas took over a week to call me back. By then my issue was already fixed by RemoveYourName.com. Good article

Posted by: Tim Reynolds at November 18, 2007 07:17 AM

For those that truly want an end all to having their names removed from search engines all you have to do is contact a real hacker (lol I know one). Myself I actually get one hell of a joy out of seeing my name all over the web due to comments from some nasty skank bar whore. Lmao I used to put my own name on Girldontdatehim.com but now I am really a member and Im so happy. True player status lol

Posted by: Todd meuir at December 2, 2007 06:27 PM

I tried the Zallas company as well, they were way overpriced and not very responsive. Then I tried a company that I seen on the news Reputationdefender.com.... their package was fairly reasonable, tho i had a lot of issues trying to get content removed. I finally went to another company (Http://www.CyberFootprints.com) and although it cost a bit more than i originally wanted to spend they were able to remove the links.

Posted by: Jason Stanton at April 3, 2008 07:14 PM

Make sure you do your research. I spoke with the CyberFootprints people. They say the process takes could take months. When you do a Whois search on them they have only been around for one month as of April 30th. The domain was registered on March 29th. "Jason's" post above is posted 4 days later. My spam radar is going off! Also, when you go to their site they have 9 "testimonials". If your process takes months and you have only existed for one month then how do you have 9 testimonials? Sounds weird to me.

Posted by: Mike at April 30, 2008 05:28 AM

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