Searching Your Name: What Shows Up and What Google Will Remove

Before a first date, a job interview or a client call, there is a good chance someone will type your name into a search engine. What they find may be your own profiles and work, or it may be an old forum post, a people search listing with your home address, or a page about someone else with the same name.

You cannot control everything that appears, but you have more options than many people realize. Google offers tools for finding and requesting removal of some personal information from its search results, and it publishes the rules it uses to decide those requests.

One distinction runs through everything below. Removing a result from Google Search does not remove the page from the internet. Google's own help pages say this repeatedly: the information still exists on the source website, and people may still reach it through direct links, social media or other search engines. Fixing the source is a separate step.

Run a deliberate self-search

Start by searching the way other people would. Try your full name, your name with and without a middle initial, any nicknames or former names, and your name combined with your city, employer, school or profession. Google's help page suggests that to find results showing your contact information, you can search for your name plus your home city, or your name plus your home address. Check image results as well as web results.

Keep a simple log as you go. For each result worth noting, record:

• the page address (URL) and the website it is on
• what it shows about you
• whether you control it, such as your own profile or blog
• what you want to happen: nothing, an update, or removal

That log becomes your to-do list, and it makes later requests much faster, because nearly every removal process asks for the exact URL.

Fix what you control first

Anything on an account you own is your job to edit, and Google's removal tools are not designed for it. Among the policy requirements for its "Results about you" removals, Google says the information must not be something you control yourself, giving the example of a social media page or a personal blog that you own.

So begin with your own material. Update outdated profiles, remove your phone number or home address from bios and "contact" pages, and delete old posts you no longer want public. Our guide Deleting Old Accounts: A Safe Cleanup Plan for Unused Logins covers abandoned accounts.

How Google's "Results about you" works

"Results about you" is a Google feature for finding search results that show your personal contact information. According to Google's help page, you enter your name and the personal information you want to look for, and Google checks for search results that show it. Google notes that some of these features are still rolling out, for users over 18 in certain markets; for a person under 18, Google points to its detailed removal request form instead.

The basic flow:

1. Open "Results about you" from the menu under your profile picture in the Google app, or go to the "Results about you" page on the web, and choose Get started or Settings.
2. Enter your name and contact details, such as phone numbers, home addresses and email addresses. Google's tip says you can also add a nickname, maiden name, Social Security number, passport number or driver's license number.
3. Turn on notifications if you want Google to email you, or notify you in the Google app, when matching results appear.
4. Review matches in the "To review" tab. For each one, you can request removal or choose "Mark as reviewed."
5. Track requests under "Removal requests," where each is shown as in progress, approved, denied or undone.

You can also start a request from a search result itself, through the "About this result" panel, by choosing to remove a result because it shows your personal info. Google says you should enter your name and contact details exactly as they appear on the page, including a nickname or an old address if that is what the page shows.

What Google will and won't remove

Google's help page lists personal information it may approve for removal through this feature: phone number, home address, email address, Social Security number, passport number and driver's license number. Its broader policy on private information also covers items such as confidential government ID numbers, bank account or credit card numbers, images of your signature or ID, private records such as medical records, and confidential usernames and passwords.

There are limits. Google says it won't remove information that is valuable to the public, and gives examples of pages owned by educational or government institutions and newspapers. For results from sites like these, you won't see a "Remove result" option.

When a request is approved, Google describes two possible outcomes. Most of the time, the URL won't appear for any search. In some cases, it won't appear for searches that contain your name, which Google calls a query-based removal; this happens when the page also has content considered valuable to the public or information about other people or businesses. If a request is denied, Google says you will get an email and can see the reason on the "Results about you" page. You can also undo a removal you made, though that does not guarantee the page will reappear, since someone else may have had the same URL removed.

Google also has separate removal policies for doxxing content, for intimate or sexual images shared without consent (including fake ones), and for sites that demand payment to remove content. Our guide Repairing Your Online Reputation: Fixes That Work at the Source covers those routes.

Go to the source

Because a search removal leaves the page online, Google recommends contacting the website's owner when you can. Its help page suggests looking for a "Contact us" link or an email address, usually on the site's homepage. You can also search for "whois" plus the site's address to look for registrant or administrative contact details, and if you can't reach the owner, try contacting the company that hosts the site. Expect that lookup to come up short more often than it once did: ICANN says data-protection rules such as the EU's GDPR led to restricted access to most personal data in domain registration records.

If the owner does update or delete the page but the old version still shows up in Google, use Google's Refresh outdated content tool. Google's help page explains that when content was deleted from a site but still appears in search results, the page description or cached copy may be outdated, and you can request a refresh by entering the page's URL.

For people search sites, which compile and sell reports about individuals, the Federal Trade Commission explains that most have a way to opt out. You can do it yourself, one site at a time, for free, or pay a service to do it for you; either way, you may be asked for information to verify your identity.

Make it a routine

Personal information tends to reappear. The FTC notes, for example, that information can show up again on people search sites when your public records change. A light routine keeps things manageable: leave notifications on if you use "Results about you," repeat your self-search every few months and after big life changes such as a move, and keep your log updated with request dates and outcomes.

Key takeaways

• Search yourself the way others would, and log each result's exact URL and what you want done.
• Edit or delete content you control yourself; Google's tool is for information you don't control.
• "Results about you" can find and help remove results showing contact details and certain ID numbers.
• Google won't remove some public-interest pages, such as those from newspapers or government sites.
• Removal from search is not removal from the web, so contact the site owner when you can.

Sources

• Google Search Help, Find and remove personal info in Google Search results
• Google Search Help, Remove my private info from Google Search
• Google Search Help, Contact a website owner
• Google Search Help, Refresh outdated content
• Google Search Help, Request to have your personal content removed from Google Search
• Federal Trade Commission, What To Know About People Search Sites That Sell Your Information (July 2022)
• ICANN, Domain Name Registration Data