Summary: The web has a very long memory. Removal is nearly impossible. Avoid posting sensitive information in any way that can be seen publicly.
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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.
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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.
Related:
Ask Leo! - Why shouldn't I post my email address in a public forum?
Ask Leo! - How do I get rid of all this SPAM?!?!
Article C2450 - October 30, 2005
Reputation-Technologies.com worked and only took 3 weeks! It was fairly inexpensive, after I called the rest of these companies and when I google my name now, the negative results are pushed back to page 3. Good luck!
07-Apr-2009
Yes, I signed with zallas.com and they are a bit more expensive then Reputation-Technologies.com folks, but they know what they are doing... Not suggesting that Reputation-Technologies don't know what they are doing, but zallas just have their stuff together when I talked to them. Will see how it works though; so far the negative link is only off to page 2.
Posted by: David at April 6, 2009 10:07 PMWhat if you have an attorney contact the owner of the site? Would they remove it before I spend a few hundred for legal fees?
07-Apr-2009
Leo is right (I assume that was an answer from Leo). I work with quite a few law firms and requests pile in quite often - people want to sue teen agers for posting bad info about their kids on myspace, obviously classic ripoffreport and scam.com examples... Legally, these problems get nowhere... And by the way, which attorney is it that you're speaking of that charges a few hundred? :) At minimum, this problem will cost you $250/hr. and might take weeks if not months to negotiate... We're talking about thousands and tens of thousands in legal fees. So, I'd say the three websites you could review for alternative ways to help with this problem are: www.reputation-technologies.com, www.zallas.com and www.cleanmy.name , last one being quite inexpensive, but I haven't tried it, so can't say if it works.
Posted by: Mike at April 7, 2009 9:28 AMLegal is not the way to go here... Even if you get a court order to take the negative info down, which is very unlikely, it is still not guaranteed that you'd get the negative link off of google... although I guess you could take the same court order to google then and see if they remove it.
Posted by: Alan at April 7, 2009 9:31 AMOn a related matter: it's a good move, when the phone company gives you a 'new' telephone number, to google it and see if it's secondhand. I was getting lots of calls from catering companies and soon found out that my number had once been used by a visitor centre up the road, and was listed in various online business directories!
Posted by: Graham Peters at April 22, 2009 6:24 AMAnd how is this related? :)
We're talking about removing a name from Google... If you have a phone number listed all over, and you don't want it listed, contact the owner of the site to remove it. If they don't do it, use www.reputation-technologies.com and they'll get it off first 5-10 pages at least.
25-Apr-2009
Depending on the size of the site, the site owner can remove individual links or entries from many of the search engines. I have a site that I did not want showing up in the search engines. As the site owner, it was very easy to have Google remove all links to it. They were gone in three days time and it was all automated. If the site is small enough, you might be able to get them to make a similar request for entries with your information - chances are they wont, but you could always give it a try. Not all of the search sites are as helpful, and your best hopes would be for removal from the biggest few.
Posted by: Jay at May 5, 2009 9:11 AMI have been researching with all of the companies that have been in the business of cleaning names on search engines but only one of them had really removed my name from the SE's and my negative link was published at ROR(rip-of-report) and many I have contacted and hired but only http://www.reputationengineer.com/ removed it and cleared my name within the first 2 months of the 6 months contract. And had a clear profile online with applying with companies have been a breeze with no problems.
Posted by: Jennifer Haley at May 11, 2009 1:57 AMJennifer, reputation Engineer is a ripoff and you might be fraud too - how could they have done what you are saying they have done if they only registered their website 6 days ago?! LOL and their website just sucks...
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/reputationengineer.com
Do your homework people!
Posted by: Elmer at May 11, 2009 9:26 AM