How do I remove a URL from Google Search?

Q: How do I remove a URL from Google Search?

File a temporary removal in Search Console's Removals tool to hide it for about six months, then make it permanent with a 404, 410 or noindex.

Do it in two parts. For speed, open the Removals tool in Search Console and file a temporary removal, which hides the URL from Google Search for about six months. For permanence, change the page itself: delete it so it returns 404 or 410, put it behind a login, or add a noindex rule. Without the permanent fix, the URL can reappear once the temporary removal runs out.

Filing a temporary removal

In Search Console, open Removals and stay on the Temporary removals tab.
Click New request and enter the URL.
Choose Remove this URL only for one page, or Remove all URLs with this prefix for a whole folder or site.
Submit, then follow the request's status in the table.

What it covers, according to Google's Removals help:

The http and https and the www and non-www versions of the address you enter, but not other subdomains such as m.; file separate requests for those and for any other URLs showing the same page.
Google Search only. Other search engines and the page itself are unaffected.
Visibility only. Google can still crawl the page; it just won't show it.
Only URLs in a property you manage. Owners and full users can file requests; restricted users can only view them.

Clearing a snippet instead

If the page should stay findable but its description shows something you have removed, choose Clear snippet in search in the same dialog. Google drops the description until it next indexes the page, while the page can still appear in results.

Making the removal permanent

Method	What happens	Watch out for
Delete the page (404 or 410)	Google drops the URL after recrawling it	Update internal links and your sitemap
Password or login	The content can't be fetched, so it can't be indexed	The best choice for private material
`noindex` rule	Google drops the page the next time it crawls it	The page must stay crawlable, or Google never sees the rule
robots.txt block	Not a removal method	A blocked URL can still be indexed without a description

Google's robots.txt introduction is explicit that robots.txt isn't a way to keep a page out of Google; use noindex or password protection for that.

Pages on sites you don't own

The Removals tool only works on your own properties. If someone else's page has changed or disappeared but Google still shows the old version, use the public Refresh Outdated Content tool: see removing outdated content.

How AutoPSEO helps

Add the URL to the Index Tracker and AutoPSEO inspects it daily and alerts you when its index status changes, so you know when the permanent fix has taken effect. For an article AutoPSEO wrote, taking it down sends your site a takedown through the webhook, and merging it into another article also passes the address it should now redirect to (delivery).