You have a well-made website that ranks in Google’s SERPs. Great!
Until, suddenly, the visibility and organic traffic of your website starts to drop because, by mistake, there are pages with duplicate content, outdated or low quality content.
Well, the only way to rebound now is to deindex some URLs (and in some cases pray). With this approach, you can optimize your site’s quality by ensuring the remaining content adheres to Google’s policy.
But what if you want to deindex your entire website instead because it’s totally outdated or contains leaked information? Or do you simply want nothing more to do with it?
Whether you want to deindex a site from Google or only some of its URLs, this guide is for you. Read on to learn how to remove your website or any of its pages from Google’s Index and search results.
URL Deindex / deindexing meaning
When you search or ask Google, the search engine draws search results from its massive index of pages across the Internet. This index is a collection of pages and content that Google web crawlers and algorithms deem helpful or relevant to people’s searches.
Google constantly adds new pages to this database or index, and this process is called indexing. When Google indexes your site, it will appear in search engine results pages (SERPs), making it more visible to users.
Deindexing is the opposite of the URL indexing process, where pages or content are removed from SERPs and Google index. Google can automatically deindex pages if they fail to meet its quality guidelines, but owners can also manually deindex their pages to improve their website’s crawlability, quality and authority (and so SEO).
Why deindex a site or page from Google?
Why do people remove content even if it already appears in Google search results? Well, deindexing can actually be a smart move to avoid SEO disasters. If you have content that violates Google's policies, keeping it indexed might hurt your site in the long run, harming its visibility, rankings and organic traffic.
Here are some examples of pages that should be deindexed:
- Sites that are not yet ready for publishing: An “under construction” website might accidentally be published in Google because it was leaked or hacked. You can request that Google remove this website from its index.
- Outdated pages: If you publish blogs, articles, and other resources with obsolete information, they’re not already helpful to users. So, it’s better to update or deindex them to avoid penalties.
- Duplicate pages: Pages with different URLs but identical content are called duplicate pages. Search engines will struggle to identify which page to rank if they appear in duplicates, so it’s advisable to index only a single version of content.
- Low-quality pages: Pages with no or few content must be deindexed. For instance, a “Thank you,” “Error,” or legal page provided by a shopping website to customers should not appear in Google search. Moreover, poorly made content that contains erroneous information must also be removed.
- Pages that contain sensitive information: While private info might not hurt your website SEO-wise, it might instead hurt your business’s reputation. But fret not; you can always request to deindex these pages.
How to deindex a site URL from Google?
Now that you know what deindexing means and why you should do it, let’s explore various methods to deindex a URL from the search engine.
1. Using the meta robots “noindex” tag
In our opinion, this is the 100% correct method to proceed.
In this method, you must access the HTML code of the page you want to deindex. You can find this in your content management system’s code editor.
Between the codes <head> and </head>, input the “noindex” meta tag to signal Google not to index the page:
<meta name=”robots”, content=”noindex”>
Googlebot will see that noindex and act accordingly.
Noindex HTTP header
Alternatively, it is also possible to return a NoIndex HTTP header (X-Robots-Tag) via server. Please note this method is a bit more advanced.
2. Use the Google URL Removal Tool
Be VERY CAREFUL with this tool. If you don't use it correctly you can delete URLs that are generating traffic and business from the Google index.
In this method, you need to use Google Search Console (GSC) to temporarily delete the unwanted URL from the search results for up to 6 months. It will get deindexed forever always that you follow the previous point (meta robots noindex tag). This tool is NOT for deindexing URLs, it’s just to remove results from the SERPs:
Step 1: Find and confirm the URL you want to remove.
Step 2: Log in to GSC.
Step 3: On the left menu bar, click “Removals” under “Indexing”.
Step 4: Click the “New Request” button.
Step 5: Paste the URL of the page you want to remove. Make sure to choose “Remove this URL only”. Afterward, click Next.
Another option available in the prompt box is to Clear Cached URL. Pick this if you want to delete the page description snippet in the search results until Google recrawls it. This option is recommended if you want to remove sensitive information showing in your result snippet.
Step 6: Confirm your request by pressing “Submit Request”.
That’s it! Google will delete the URL you’ve requested from the search results. It may take several days before it stops showing up in SERPs. You can track the progress of your deindexing request in GSC. Don’t forget to add a meta robots noindex that in the URL if you want it to be completely deindexed.
Related: How to submit your website to Google
When not to use the removal tool
Here are some reminders to consider when this method will not work:
- When you want to permanently delete a URL.
- When you want to recreate your site back to square one.
- When you want to block a page that is beyond your control.
- When you want to put down hacked URLs. There is a proper method to address a hacked website.
3. Using the “page not found” error code (404 error)
When a URLs returns a 404 error code upon accessing, it’s like telling Google to wipe it out from the SERPs. So, manually configuring server response with this code can help you deindex a URL from Google.
You can create your own landing page to show users that the page is inaccessible. Afterward, you can tell the server to use your 404 error page when someone tries to visit it. Using GSC, you must see Google’s failed attempts to crawl the page since it already recognizes that it does not exist and will eventually disappear in SERPs.
4. Using an auto-deindexing tool like ours
It seems pretty easy to deindex URLs from Google. However, once you have to deal with bulk pages, this process can be time-consuming.
Fortunately, you can do the deindexing process on autopilot using online tools like INDEXED.pro. This software streamlines the deindex requesting process by creating an XML Sitemap containing URLs that must be deindexed (with a “noindex” meta robots tag). Afterward, you can submit this XML sitemap to Google Search Console to quickly deindex unwanted URLs.
How to remove a site from Google
What if you want to completely wipe out your site’s existence on Google? Is it possible?
Of course, it is. However, it’s a pretty tedious process. Before you remove the site, you may want to restrict users' access to it until the removal process is complete. Using your CMS, change your website’s name and encrypt it with a password so you’re the only one who can access it.
Afterward, you can manually delete your website from its hosting.
Deindex your URLs faster with INDEXED.pro
Time is precious for websites striving to top search rankings. So, you must deindex any duplicate, outdated, or low-quality content as soon as possible. Manually doing this process can be tedious, but with the INDEXED.pro website indexer you can deindex hundreds of URLs requested in a few minutes. Just add the meta robots tag “noindex” to the URLs you want to deindex, create a new XML sitemap with those URLs, give that sitemap to the tool and... It’s done!
We also help websites make their way to online success with our state-of-the-art tools powered by official Google APIs and AI. Our tool can automate your website's URL indexing process and get them indexed in less than 48 hours.
Have you managed to deindex one or more URLs of your website from Google with our guide?