Public URL Removal Tool - can I repeat the request?

[Niall123]

Hey everyone.

I used the public url removal tool to remove a 404 page from google. It was a blog about me that was deleted, yet later was included in the index, and showed some really personal info in the site description etc.

It has been removed for the next 90 days, and then as far as i know, it is expired and is displayed in the index again.

When this happens, can I request that the same url is removed again? I worry that it's allowed to be removed once, and that's it. Does anyone else have any experience of this, particularly in relation to using the public url removal tool (i.e. the webpage removal request tool), at the following link:

[google.com...]

Thanks for any help!

[g1smd]

If the URL returns 404 it should disappear from the index forever once removed.

Please report back here if that isn't what happens.

[Niall123]

But doesn't the public url removal tool only hide it from view for 90 days? Doesn't the cache remain for a long time, so it doesn't properly fall out of the index for ages?

[g1smd]

Well. That behaviour revolved around the Supplemental Index, which has changed in many ways over the last few years.

I'm fairly sure that someone at Google has more recently said that if at the end of the 90 days the URL still doesn't return content, then they throw it away...

I haven't seen need to remove any URLs this year, so can't prove anything any way at this time.

[Niall123]

Thanks. Does anyone else have any experience of recently using this tool, and if so, what happened after the 90 days? Did it return to the index? If so, could you use the tool again?

[JS_Harris]

add the page to your robots.txt and add a no-cache meta tag to the site and when it next gets crawled the "cache" option in Google should be gone. You can re-add it later.

It sometimes helps to create a version of that page as a .php file which redirects to another page, make sure you name the file exactly what the old uri was and add ".php" to it.

[Niall123]

I'm not able to do that, as the blog was made by someone else. I flagged it and Blogger deleted it for me.

[tedster]

If the url truly gives a 404, then what is there for Google to show in the search results? Clearly that result must lead to a 404 status error message when you click on it, right?

So, yes, you can resubmit. You can also click on the "Dissatisfied? Help us imporve." link at the bottom of that search results page to report the bad search result.

[Niall123]

Hey. It was a blog made about me; it was deleted later that day, but it was still indexed about three weeks later and personal information appeared when my name was searched, even though the page returns a true 404. I removed it from google (for 90 days?) using the public url removal tool.

[tedster]

If the page is no longer online then it will not re-appear after 90 days.

[Niall123]

Ok, i hope so!

[g1smd]

*** add the page to your robots.txt and add a no-cache meta tag ***

The robots file would stop the page being accessed, and therefore the meta tag would never be seen. The correct advice would have been be noindex meta tag with nocache meta tag.

[Niall123]

Yeah, that doesn't really apply in my case due to the site being created by someone else. You probably know that though, and are just being hypothetical?

[Niall123]

I was reading around this issue and i came across the following topic:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Some people weren't able to remove the url again:

"After removing the urls they all come back in 3-6months and cause havoc on your site. And, from my experience, you can't remove them again using the tool."

" When you look at the serps, it almost seems like Google has just been abandoned. No changes, stale serps, old removed urls returning even if they don't exist anymore."

This was in 2005, and i know there were changes to webmaster removal applications in 2007, but I'd imagine the tool at the moment is pretty much the same. Is anyone able to clarify things? Has anyone used the tool more than once for the same url?

[tedster]

The main difference between what you read in that thread and your situation is this. The url you are concerned about is no longer live - it returns a 404 status. Google will not re-include a url that is 404 in their search results.

[Niall123]

Ok, thanks. I have two questions for you (or anyone else who knows these things)!

1. Will it not re-include a URL that is 404 even if it was cached i.e. the caches that cause 404 pages to appear on google in the first place? (The page made about me was cached the day it was made, so even though the page was deleted the same day, it still ended up being indexed a couple of weeks later). I've not been able to use any index/cache tags to prevent indexing as the page was made by someone else, as i've said.

2. I know the supplemental index has changed, but i think it still exists in a different way to what it used to. Is the supplemental index still relevant?

Thanks for all your help, it's appreciated so much.

[edited by: Niall123 at 9:37 pm (utc) on Dec. 4, 2008]

[tedster]

Google keeps a copy of a 404 page in their PRIVATE records, but it will be dropped from the publlicly available information. If you would happen to see it show up because of some new version of the Supplemental index, sending another url removal request will take care of that unlikely event.

[Niall123]

Thanks. Sorry for being so persistent about this, but it'd really damage my friendship with someone if they saw the cached page. I had thought that google had to crawl a cached 404 page a number of times before removing it from the index, and that with new isolated pages it'd only crawl it once in a blue moon. Does it not matter with the url removal tool? I thought the url removal tool merely hid the content for 90 days?

I'm kinda cringing a little whilst making this post as I know I'm like a broken record. Plus if anyone could share their experiences of removing 404 pages using this tool it'd be great.

[Niall123]

Hey, just to be pedantic, I kept referring to url removal tools etc, but i meant the "webpage removal request tool" - is there any difference between this tool and the url removal tool that webmasters use? There's a lot written on the net about the url removal tool, but not much about the webpage removal tool. I thought maybe that google would treat a removal request from the webmaster of a site more seriously than they would of a person in my position i.e. a third party. Will it not matter, e.g. i can still remove again it if they return it to the index?