Google turns up a new version of the Removals report in Search Console. This tool does three things: (1) lets you temporarily hide URLs from appearing in Google search, (2) show you which content is not in Google because it is outdated content and (3) gives access to view URLs that were filtered by Google’s SafeSearch adult filter.
PS: The new report also provides necessary info on pages on your site that have been reported via the rest Google public tools.
How To Get Across The Tool: You can get across the tool within Google Search Console, under the “Index” menu, labeled as “Removals.” You can also get quick access to it via https://search.google.com/search-console/removals to access the tool and then select a property.
How To Temporarily Remove URLs: Google allows you to temporarily remove URLs from showing in Google search quickly via Google Search Console. This feature was earlier present in the old Search Console but is now actively available in the new version. Kindly Note: Temporarily removals do not delete your URL from Google’s index, instead, it just hides the URL for about six-months from appearing in the search results. You will still have to permanently block the URL in the future, such as using a 404, robots.txt or another method to block the URL.
Basically Google Provides You Two Types Of Removals:
- Temporary remove URL which will automatically hide the URL from Google Search results for about six months and clear the cached copy of the page.
- Clear cache URL clears the cached page and wipes out the page description snippet in Search results until the page is crawled again.
Here’s the screenshot of how it actually appears:
Here’s the screenshot of how the request removals look like in the new interface:
Outdated Content: The outdated content section provides information related to removal requests made via the public Remove Outdated Content tool. It can be used by anyone to update search results showing information that is no longer present on a page, Google said. You can view a history of all requests to update or remove outdated Google Search results for your site that were made using the Remove Outdated Content tool in the past 6 months.
SafeSearch filtering: This section gives out information related to content that was deemed as adult content. Google users can report specific URLs as adult-only to Google using the SafeSearch suggestion tool. URLs submitted using this tool are reviewed, and if Google feels that this content should be filtered via Search results, these URLs are tagged as adult content.
Often it is difficult for SEOs and webmasters to know which of their content was removed due to SafeSearch. So this tool should help communicate that.
Why We Care: This tool gives SEOs, webmasters, site owners and others a sureshot means to think wisely before removing content from Google search and also see why some content was removed due to third-party requests. From there you can take action to try to not just unblock content removal requests you made but also third-party requests due to outdated content or SafeSearch filtering.
