Remove a news article from your search results
Two different jobs with two different success rates: persuading an editor to unpublish, and persuading a search engine to stop listing. We tell you which one you actually have.
How do you remove a news article from Google?
The only route that removes an article entirely is unpublishing: asking the publisher to take it down, usually on grounds of factual error, a resolved legal matter, or disproportionate ongoing harm. If the publisher refuses, the article can sometimes be de-indexed so it stops appearing in search while remaining live on the site. In the EU and UK this runs through a right to be forgotten request; elsewhere it generally requires a court order or a policy breach.
Never threaten a publisher. Legal threats against a newsroom routinely produce a second article about the threat, and that one outranks the first. Every approach we make is a documented, courteous request to a named editor under their own policy.
What makes an unpublishing request work
- A demonstrable factual error, with documents proving it
- A charge dropped, a case dismissed, or a conviction overturned or spent
- A record later expunged or sealed by a court
- The subject was a minor, or is not a public figure
- Significant age with no continuing public interest
- The outlet has a published correction or unpublishing policy to point at
- An update is acceptable where removal is not — many editors will append an outcome
How a news article case runs
Order matters. A failed de-index filing is a record of a rejected claim, and it makes the next attempt harder.
- 1
Assessment
Is there an error, a legal change, or a privacy ground? If the article is accurate reporting of something that happened and you are a public figure, we say so and decline the item.
- 2
Publisher approach
A documented request to the correct editor, under that outlet’s own corrections or unpublishing policy, with evidence attached rather than asserted.
- 3
Negotiate the middle ground
Editors refuse removal far more often than they refuse an update. An appended outcome — "charges were dropped in March" — changes what a reader takes away, and is frequently achievable where removal is not.
- 4
De-index where the source will not move
A right to be forgotten request in the EU or UK, a policy-based request where one applies, or a court order route if you have one.
- 5
Syndication sweep
One story is usually five URLs. Wire pickups and aggregators are filed separately, because clearing the original leaves the copies ranking.
- 6
Proof and monitoring
Dated search screenshots per URL, then re-checks across the monitoring window.
The specifics
- Priced
- Per URL, including each syndicated copy
- Best outcome
- Unpublished at source — clears every search engine at once
- Common outcome
- An appended update or correction rather than removal
- Typical timeline
- 3 to 12 weeks; legal routes run longer
- Counts as delivered
- The URL no longer returns for the named query, evidenced by a dated screenshot
- If nothing moves
- Full refund of that item from escrow
What we will not claim
- We will not try to remove accurate journalism about a public figure. It does not work, and attempting it tends to produce a second story about the attempt.
- Removal at the source beats de-indexing every time: it clears every search engine at once and it cannot be undone by a recrawl. We try the source first even when de-indexing is the cheaper job for us.
- Google decides. We build the strongest documented request; nobody outside Google can force a result down, and anyone claiming a contact there is lying to you.
- Editorial independence is real. An editor who says no has said no, and we will not pretend a second approach changes that.
Questions
Terms on this page
Last reviewed . Platform policies change; we re-check every page quarterly.