Did you see your name, image or information on Google, Bing, or another search engine? Is information about you harming your image or reputation? We will explain how to make them disappear or request that they be dereferenced by the search engines. In short: how to delete information about yourself from the internet.
To remove a search engine a page with information about you, you have two different solutions namely:
- You can request removal of such information at the original site;
- You can request that the information is no longer referenced by search engines.
First solution: to apply to the site of origin
Step one – Contact the Site Manager
You will find some information on the site owner in the legal notices or terms and conditions of the site. If you cannot find this information on the website, you can try to find his identity and contact details on a public database called “whois “, which identifies the domain name owners. Indeed, the owner of the domain name (“registrant”) is generally the person in charge of the site. You can look, for example, the whois tools on the website whois.net. To remove information about you on a web page, you have to justify your request explaining, for example, how the publication mar your reputation or privacy.
Step Two: Remove Search Engine Cache Information
After obtaining the removal of information about you on a site, traces can remain for some time in the results of the search engines. Indeed, search engines temporarily keep a copy of all the pages that their indexing robots visit. This is called “caches”. The time between visits varies according to different criteria such as:
- The popularity of the site
- The frequency of updating the site.
On average, indexing robots visit the pages every two to three weeks (some sites, for example news, can be updated on a daily basis).
In this time interval, the old version of a web page may still be visible from the “cache” of the search engines, even if the page has been modified on the original site.
- Google provides webmasters internet sites voluntarily de-indexing procedure to request the removal of the link and cache deleted pages. However, this procedure requires a Gmail account.
If the information concerning you were removed from the website, and the information will always appear on Google, you can also use this procedure to remove the cached version of a page in Google search results.
Second solution: request the removal of a search result directly from the engine
More generally, and independently of previous steps, Internet users can enter the search engine of a request for dereferencing a web page that infringes their privacy.
For example, the Google search engine offers to fill in a form to request the deletion of one or more search results. The search engine will then consider the merits of the application in terms of the conditions set by the ECJ . The request form for removing search result (s) is available through the Google Help Center. (https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_eudpa?product=websearch&hl=en).
The Internet user can also apply to the courts to verify and order the necessary measures.
It is therefore recommended to keep a record of the request made with the search engine.
Next week: how to optimize for search engines for your local business?
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