6 steps to remove content from Google

Last updated on: July 7, 2023

All businesses with an online presence need to know how to make the most of search engines and digital platforms. For many brands, search engines will be the gateway to expanding a consumer base, building a reputation, and maximizing revenue. 

Unfortunately, scammers and bad actors also use search engines to upload malicious and misleading content that damages your brand.  Fake websites and duplicated content are key tactics of scammers that often prove quite effective. To protect your business and your customers you have to act against these infringers and get their content removed from search engines like Google. 

In this blog, we’ll be exploring the steps you need to take to remove content from Google by focussing on a few key topics including: 

• Determine your eligibility for content removal
• What do you need to remove content from Google?
• How to remove content from Google
• How to automatically de-index content from Google

The importance of determining your eligibility for content removal

Content cannot be removed from a search engine just because you don’t like it. There has to be a reason and evidence behind your desire to remove the content. In most cases, the content must have infringed your intellectual property (IP) rights or violated Google’s content policies. 

If your business has registered IP rights such as trademarks and copyrights then you will have strong legal grounds to support your removal request if another content owner has stolen or misused your IP. In most cases, Google, like many other search engines, will act if they have reasonable grounds to believe that someone has uploaded content via their site that infringes someone else’s intellectual property rights. 

For example, if you have a trademark for your brand’s logo or slogan and someone uploads content on to Google that uses your logo or slogan without your permission you will be able to get this content removed by sending a request to Google. 

Equally, Google has its own content policies and guidelines. If you believe that a scammer has uploaded content that both harms your brand and violates Google’s policies then you may have grounds to qualify for content removal. For example, if they created content that is malicious or threatening this may violate Google’s content policies. If you report this prohibited content, Google will likely get it removed. 

What do you need to remove content from Google?

Before you make a removal request to Google, you need to gather some key information and evidence. 

Firstly, identify the URL and domain name that you suspect hosts the infringing content. Without this, Google will find it difficult to know what content you want removed. If there is more than one URL or domain name make sure to submit each and every potentially infringing URL. 

Then, gather evidence of ownership. If you have copyrighted or trademarked material that you believe has been stolen make sure you have proof of your registered intellectual property. This will be key in showing that the scammer has actually infringed your rights.  You should also collect any evidence that shows who has uploaded the illegal content. 

After that bring together all the supporting documentation you have. The success of removal requests is often based on the quality of evidence you provide. The more documentation you give to Google the easier it will be for them to make a decision and action the removal. This means recording and sending where and when you saw the content with screenshots. You may also want to reach out to other members of your business, stakeholders, and customers and ask whether they have any evidence of interactions with stolen content or malicious content related to your brand on Google. 

How to remove content from Google

Step 1 – Visit Google’s Legal Help page on how to ‘Report content on Google’

Step 2 – Select the Google product where the content that you are reporting appears. 

For most businesses looking to take down content, ‘Google Search’ is the option to select. 

Step 3 – Select the reason you wish to report the content

This will either relate to legal reasons, connected to country/region-specific laws, such as intellectual property laws, or it will relate to non-legal reasons, like Google’s policies on spam or phishing. 

Step 4 – State your ownership rights and outline what kind of content you wish to report

Step 5 – Identify, describe and provide the location of the infringing content

Here is where you can provide any evidence you may have gathered about the infringing content and why you believe it should be removed from Google. You will also need to provide a URL link to the potential infringing material. Any supporting documentation you provide here will be key to influencing the outcome of the removal request. 

Step 6 – Sign a declaration statement 

Sign a statement that confirms you have made this report in good faith and the information you have given is accurate. 

How to automatically de-index content from Google

Red Points’ Search Engine Removal Service allows your business to protect itself and streamline the process of de-indexing content from Google. We detect, monitor, and, deindex content that infringes your intellectual property rights so that you can get on with running your business. 

We tackle the common infringements on search engines like high-ranking impersonating sites, URLs that provide illegal access and websites indexed by authorized sellers. If these infringing assets are allowed to grow and spread they have the potential to damage your reputation and minimize your revenue. 

Our service provides you with protection from these threats with three simple steps:

• Detect and Monitor 

Our automated bots scour search engines like Google and Bing every 15 minutes looking to uncover infringements that could potentially hurt your brand. Through machine learning, we are able to continually improve our detection process to ensure that you can proactively discover illegal content. 

• Validate 

Our detection process gives us a useful view of the landscape for infringing content. We are then able to log the detections we make onto a platform for you to review. You will then be able to validate a detection. This step can also be accomplished via our automated validation process that you can set up based on your prescribed parameters. 

• Enforce and Measure   

Following validation, you can immediately start to remove and delist the illegitimate content. Fast action will prevent your business and customers from being damaged too severely. 

Once we have enforced against the bad actors in question you will be able to measure the impact of your brand protection actions. Learn from our performance dashboards and in-depth reports. This will help you evaluate your coverage and inform any decisions around illegal search engine content moving forward. 

We have a 97% customer retention rate and an average takedown time of 1.5 days. Our average success rate from detection to removal is 99%. So you can be sure that if you choose Red Points you will have the most comprehensive and robust approach to infringing online content. 

What’s next

To remove undesirable content from Google and protect your brand you have to act now. Once you have acted it is also important to monitor the progress of your removal requests as regularly as possible. Hopefully, your removal request results in the content being taken down. 

A proactive approach to illegal online content will allow you to maintain the integrity of your domain names, your digital brand, and your customer relationships. With each passing day, scammers are finding new and inventive ways to take advantage of businesses. To safeguard your interests you can also use an automated protection service that is capable of operating at speed and scale. 

This is where we can help. Red Points’ Search Engine Removal Service allows you to detect, monitor, and deindex infringing content and sites from search engines. Through simple and effective action we can protect you from a wide range of illegal content at scale. To learn more about how Red Points can help you remove content from Google and protect your brand, request a demo here.