As content on the Internet gets modified or sometimes removed altogether, Google wants to help users by providing a tool to have search results updated more quickly. Today the company announced the launch of an improved URL removal tool designed to make it easier to request updates based on changes of third-party web content. Google’s improved URL removal tool can be accessed here.
John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, describes the functionality of this tool:
This tool is useful for removals on other peoples’ websites. You could use this tool if a page has been removed completely, or if it was just changed and you need to have the snippet & cached page removed.
Removing a whole pages requires the page to have a proper HTTP result code (403, 404, or 410), a noindex robots meta tag, or a robots.txt file that is blocking the page . Then you enter the URL in the URL removal tool and Google will analyze it to see if it is gone. The removal request will be initiated if Google detects the page is no longer there.
If the page is still live, and you just want to remove content that appears in snippets but is no longer on the actual page, you can use the same tool. Go to the tool and enter a word that no longer appears on the live page and Google will take it from there.
If you’re the actual owner of the site, then it’s a lot faster & easier to use the Webmaster Tools URL removal feature. For more information about this new tool please read the latest post on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.
