What Google will remove from search, what it won’t, and what suppression actually means

The most useful thing a reputation firm can tell you is which of your results can be removed and which cannot. Here is the map we use.

Google removes on request

• Personal information: home address, phone number, email, government ID numbers, bank and credit card numbers, login credentials, medical records, handwritten signatures.
• Non-consensual explicit images, including fakes, and explicit content that was consented to but is now published without consent.
• Doxxing: contact information published with threats or calls to harass.
• Content about minors: images of anyone under 18 on request from them or a guardian.
• Pages on sites with exploitative removal practices, which is how most pay-to-remove mugshot and “cheater” sites are classified.
• Copyright infringement via DMCA notice from the rights owner.
• Court-ordered content, including defamation where a court has ruled.
• Outdated content: pages already changed or deleted that still show in results.

Google does not remove

True statements, opinions, negative reviews, lawful news coverage, court records on official sites, criticism of a business, and anything where Google would have to judge who is telling the truth. For these the answer is not Google; it is the publisher, a court, or suppression.

The publisher

News sites update, add context, or de-index old stories more often than people think, especially when charges were dropped, the person was a minor, or years have passed. A polite, specific request to the editor works more often than a threat. Complaint sites rarely remove but sometimes allow a response.

Suppression

Suppression means making sure the first page about you is dominated by accurate content you control or that favors you: your own site, strong professional profiles, interviews, published commentary, news coverage of your work, verified listings. A page-one result is not deleted; it is outranked until it sits on page two or three, where the share of people who ever see it falls to almost nothing.

It works when the content is real, substantial and published on sites with authority. It fails when it is thin, repetitive or on sites nobody trusts, which is why most do-it-yourself suppression and most cheap agency suppression fails.

Time frames that are honest: first movement in six to twelve weeks, a strong result off page one in three to six months, a stable page one in six to twelve.

Our rule

Before any money changes hands, we put every result in one of these columns, with the route and the price next to it. If a firm will not do that, ask why.