“Remove URL” Finally Looks Safe

What has search become when you can make a blanket statement such as “The Removal URL tool is finally safe” and everybody knows which engine you are talking about. While we are on the subject of search, I also question how many people really use Yahoo! and MSN and have any confidence whatsoever in what they are about to receive. The people I have surveyed use those two engine because of default, not because they prefer them.

These are the same people that would probably eat anything placed in front of them citing later “because it was there”.

Alright, end of my slight rant and onto the issue … Google’s URL Removal Tool. It used to be quite dangerous and was often like playing Russian Roulette with your site. Was that one page going to be removed or the entire site?

Well, now they have integrated it into Webmaster Central and I have used it and it is pretty cool. You can add up to 100 requests at once and it does ask you if the 404 (Page Not Found) occurs in Google Search or Image Search.

They also recommend that if you want content removed from Google’s index, make sure of the following:

• Ensure requests for the page return an HTTP status code of either 404 or 410.
• Block the page using a robots.txt file.
• Block the page using a meta noindex tag.

You can also check out the official Google Blog on the subject from Vanessa Fox.

So, go ahead, get rid of those pages out of the index that you don’t want popping up anymore. It is always good to do some house cleaning.