How to Remove Search Results About You From Google

How to remove search results about you from Google

Customer Success Manager

CEO & Co-Founder

Google will remove a search result about you if it shows your contact details (home address, phone number, personal email), ID numbers, bank details or explicit images shared without consent. You request it yourself, for free: through "Results about you" in your Google account, or through Google's removal form. In the EU you can also use the right to be forgotten.

Key takeaways

Google has one removal route for EU citizens (Right to be forgotten) and a separate content removal form for everyone else.
Search several variations of your name, such as with a middle initial, your address or your city, to find every result.
Google processes removal requests per URL, not per website, so submit each link separately.
Most links are removed within about 13 days, though some take 4 days and others up to 8 weeks.
Content of public interest, such as official records or business details, usually stays up even if it names you.

One thing to know before you start. Google only hides the link. The page itself stays online, and anyone who goes to the site directly still sees it. So the order matters: get the page taken down at the source where you can, then clean up what's left in Google.

Start at the source, not at Google

Most results that show your address and phone number come from people-search sites (Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified and the like). Each one has its own opt-out page (our guide to removing yourself from data broker sites explains how they work). If you opt out there, the listing disappears, and Google drops the link on its next crawl.

Then use Google for what's left: pages where the site won't remove you, old copies of pages that have already changed, and results you can't wait on.

Option 1: "Results about you" (the quickest)

If you have a Google account, this is the easiest route. Go to myactivity.google.com/results-about-you, add the name, address, phone number and email you want Google to look for, and it lists the results it finds with your contact details. You can request removal for each one from that list, and it keeps watching for new ones.

It only covers contact information. For anything else, use the form below.

Option 2: Google's removal form (outside the EU)

Use Google's content removal form. You pick what the page shows (contact details, ID numbers, images and so on), choose your country, and paste the links.

Google's form for reporting personal content in Google Search, with the reason and country fields — Outside the EU, you choose the reason and your country on this form.

Option 3: The right to be forgotten (EU and UK)

If you live in the EU, you can ask Google to delist results that are inaccurate, out of date or no longer relevant, even when they don't show contact details. Google weighs this against the public interest, so a news story about a public role usually stays.

Open Google's legal removal troubleshooter and click through:

Google Search

Google's removal form: choosing Google Search as the product where the content appears — Start by picking Google Search as the place the content appears.

The product again (Google Search)

Choosing Google Search as the product the removal request relates to

Legal reasons. Google notes here that it may share requests with Lumen, a public database of removal notices.

Choosing Legal Reasons as the reason to report content, with Google's note about sharing requests with Lumen — Google notes here that it may share requests with Lumen.

Personal data / privacy

Choosing Personal Data / Privacy as the legal reason for the request

Right to be forgotten

Choosing Right to be forgotten, the EU data protection option for delisting results about you — Right to be forgotten is the EU data protection option for delisting results about you.

Create request

The Create Request button that submits the removal request

How to find every link worth reporting

Search your name the way a stranger would. Try your full name in quotes, then add your city, your street, your phone number and your maiden name if you have one. People-search pages rank well for "name + city", so that search usually turns up the worst ones.

Check that each result is really you and not a namesake. Then open it and copy the exact address from the browser bar. Google judges every URL on its own, so a site with five pages about you needs five links, not one.

Keep the links in a single document as you go. You'll paste them into the form, and you'll want the list later to check what came down.

What happens after you submit

Google emails you a confirmation, then a decision for each link. There's no set timeline: a clear case (your home address on a people-search page) is usually quicker than a right-to-be-forgotten request, which a person has to weigh.

If a link is refused, the email says why. You can resubmit with more context, for example a screenshot showing your address on the page.

If the page has already changed or been deleted but Google still shows the old version, use the Remove outdated content tool instead. It refreshes the cached snippet.

What Google will and won't remove

Usually removed	Usually stays
Your home address, phone number or personal email	Pages that aren't actually about you
Government ID numbers, bank or card numbers	Your own social media profiles (delete or lock those yourself)
Explicit images shared without your consent	News about a public role or a matter of public interest
Doxxing: your details posted to target you	Official and government records
Pages on sites that charge to take content down	Business details that must be public by law

Table: What Google usually will and won't remove

When doing it by hand stops being worth it

One or two links: do it yourself, it takes 10 minutes. The hard part is people-search sites, which relist you after a few months and copy each other's data, so new pages keep turning up under your name. Sharing less in the first place helps too: here's how to protect your digital footprint.

That's the part Serus automates. It finds the sites that list you where you live, sends the opt-outs, gets results about you removed from Google, and checks again when listings come back. Run a free scan to see what shows up for your name.