How to remove your name from search engines

Posted on March 4, 2008 at 7:14 am

Looking for a way to remove your name from Google? Have you tried to Google your own name lately? Anything “interesting” come up that you would rather not appear in the first page for everyone to see!? I had written a post several months back on the results of Googling my own name, which turned out to be quite an eye opener as I ended up being in 71 of the top 100 results in Google!

Luckily for me, there’s nothing bad out there on me yet! The main issue with the Internet is that you may have never done anything outrageous in your life, but someone else could easily defame or slander you without you even knowing it! Either way, there are a couple of things that you can do to remove your name from the search engines, but note that none of them have any guarantees.

To start, there are literally two ways to remove bad press from Google and other search engines if you already have something out there:

Either contact the site or sites that have this information posted and ask them to remove it kindly! Hope that they agree otherwise, step 2:
You can slowly outrank the current information that is out there so that is shows up further behind the good stuff about you.

For the first method, you can find out the contact information for any website by going looking it up in the WHOIS database. Check out the following three and you might get an email address or contact number for the registered person of the site:

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

http://whois.domaintools.com/

http://www.internic.net/whois.html

Hopefully, it’s not your arch enemy that has this information posted about you, otherwise there’s nothing you can really do unless it can be considered libel by law. If it’s naked pictures of you during Spring Break, you’re done!

The next step would then be to try to bury the bad results past the known number of search results that most people look at, which is about 50. I personally don’t go past 20 or 30 search results, so you’re pretty safe if it’s that far behind.

There are a couple of websites, services, tools, etc that you can use to accomplish this. Note that there really is no way to COMPLETELY erase information that is already indexed by the search engines because not only do they keep cached copies of the pages, but there are also services out there that go through all of the web pages on the Internet and create copies of them at specific times.

So even if you were to get a site to remove some bad content and Google updates its index with the new information, you could always go to Internet Archive and view a past version of the page.

How to manage your online identity

So the only other way to remove bad search results for your name is to get lots of good results show up before it. Here are a couple of online personal profile services that are indexed by the search engines and will show up pretty high for most names.

	This is probably one of the most popular professional networking sites out there. Creating a profile on here will definitely get you a bit of attention on the search engines.

	Plaxo has over 15 million users and keeps growing fast! It’s a great way to keep in touch and up to date with your closet people. It’s also a great way to have you info show up in the search engines.

	Using Ziki, you can create your own personal or business profile page. The site has a good amount of power in Google and if you don’t have a common name like “John Smith”, you’ll probably show up number 1 using Ziki.

	Another similar service that will try to shoot you up in the rankings based on your name. You can add whatever type of information you want for your personal page.

	Very similar to NetFame and tries to accomplish the same goal. Worth a shot if you have no other choice!

There are also many other sites that you could try out to get your name to show up higher. For example, if you search my name “Aseem Kishore”, you’ll see I show up for Newsvine.com, Blogger profile, SEOmoz profile, Amazon.com profile, etc. Wherever you can create a profile, make you to create one!

Remember all of these methods will take weeks possibly months to actually work. You won’t be able to just create a few profiles and have them suddenly appear in Google! It takes times and patience. Another way to do this is to search other people’s names and see what sites they show up for and then go sign up on those yourself.

Finally, if none of that works, you can actually use some paid services that will remove your name from search engines for various prices. Most of them at least honestly state that it’s going to take 4 to 6 months to truly have all the bad stuff pushed further down in the rankings. Anyone touting instant removal or anything like that is a fake because it’s impossible to remove information from search engines permanently!

Services to remove your name from search engines

Zallas Technologies – Takes 4 to 6 months to remove your bad or negative information. Uses the same technique as the other company. Have to call to get a quote.

RemoveYourName.com – Uses the technique described above of pushing down bad or unwanted results. Start at $695 to push data out from the first page, and $995 to remove from the first TWO pages.

Complaint Remover – These guys are a little more hardcore and actually send out cease and desist orders on sites that have negative information about you. They also claim to use SEO tactics to get other results to show up higher.

So that’s about it! Hopefully that helps you in your endeavor to remove unwanted information about your name from Google and other search engines! Remember, the best way to avoid any of this is to simply NOT USE YOUR NAME! Don’t post your real name in forums, blog posts, online accounts, etc, if you don’t have to. The less your name is on the net, the less likely it will show up. Enjoy!

[tags]remove name from google, remove name from search engines, how to remove name from search engines[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

32 Responses to “How to remove your name from search engines”

JF Ruiz said on : March 4th, 2008 at 8:29 am

Thanks for mentionning Ziki. You’ve forget to mention that we have a promotional offer that guarantee you to be placed first even if you have a common name. Indeed we place a sponsored links on the first place on every search result pages for our pro members.

It takes us less than 72h to put you on the first place on your name For the natural ranking most of the time it takes only some hours to appears on Google with ziki.

san said on : March 6th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

i love ur blog (i subscribe to it) but of all posts i thot u had a brilliant instant idea…pretty disappointed at this one – based on ur standards in tips…

akishore said on : March 6th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

Hi San,

Thanks for the comment! I try my best to bring the best tips I can to readers. Can you tell me what exactly you were disappointed with?

Thanks!

Jamie McMillan said on : April 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

I took a look at those companies and was wondering if anyone had any feedback using them? There are two other companies that i found that seem to provide similar service.

http://www.ReputationDefender.com and http://www.CyberFootprints.com

I was just wondering if anyone has used any of them with any luck?

Thanks your suggestions are appreciated.

samuel anderson alvarenga said on : April 25th, 2008 at 2:37 am

Bom dia.
Gostaria de retirar o meu nome do site de pesquisas “google” onde consta na primeira página em que eu entrei com um processo contra uma Produtora de Cinema, através da TJMG. Me sinto constrangido e é chato às vezes, alguém ter de consultar o meu nome e logo na primeira página aparecer esse tipo de informação.

Atenciosamente,

Samuel.

Amir Badusan said on : June 18th, 2008 at 3:11 am

We found that the seo service at La Centrale Internet can also help (only in french).

Jay said on : August 23rd, 2008 at 3:06 am

Here’s a set of 10 steps you can take to become “web dead” and sort of disappear online:

http://smashgods.com/2008/08/2.....-10-steps/

It’s a good supplement to a few of the techniques you’ve listed above, and involves more than merely managing the identities – you can eliminate them.

Anon Omous said on : March 29th, 2009 at 1:34 am

I am anonynous, but these guys REMOVED my negative listing. Clean-Search. I owe them so much, this is all I can do!

Mike said on : March 31st, 2009 at 4:28 pm

I had my name on a few websites and they refused to remove it. I tried legal action and nothing worked. Supposedly freedom of speech isn’t always a good thing working in favor of good people

Nevertheless, there are a few companies that I found that deal with this problem: first is http://www.reputation-technologies.com – these guys are dedicated to this online reputation business thing, and since it’s their bread and butter, I’m guessing they are pretty good at it. Second, http://www.cleanmy.name – besides a cool name, these guys are pretty cheap and have a few packages from $49/mo. Last, but not least is the company I actually went with and they did a really great job. They are on a more expensive side and they are really a technology company and this service is just one of the departments they have, but I thought I’d share: http://www.zallas.com is their website. Tell them Mike at 323 referred you, – maybe you’ll get some sort of discount

Good luck!

George White said on : June 29th, 2009 at 1:14 am

Why should you politely have to ask them to remove it kindly and ‘hope’ that they do so? Did you sign a disclosure or contract that permitted them to throw your information out there for everyone to see? The idea of outranking the search engine is equally ridiculous. It doesn’t get rid of the information, you’d have to keep doing it forever, and my grandma doesn’t know how to do it, which makes it discriminatory. Tell them to remove it, and if they don’t, threaten to sue them.

camille said on : July 31st, 2009 at 8:55 pm

I was a victim of Identity Theft and I believe the criminal obtain a lot of personal information from the peoplesearch online services that sell private citizens information. I think there should be a civil lawsuit against companies like intellius, zabasearch, ussearch, peoplefinder etc.
Our names are private intellectual property and we did not authorize the selling of our name. They put us at risk and we do not even get a royalty fee for It.!!! Sue I say!

Clara Belle said on : August 21st, 2009 at 8:25 pm

Hello,

I am a teacher, and the first site that comes up when I google my name is the ratemyprof website.

What is my best option to remove this?

mikarla thornson said on : October 14th, 2009 at 5:27 pm

You can’t really remove a bad page off of Google. That’s close to impossible, especially if you can’t hunt down who runs the website. I heard about Zallas Technologies and their services. They’re not promising to remove a name (since it’s almost impossible, anyway), they can bump the bad ones back to the end of the line where no one sees them.

Raven said on : October 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am

I totally agree with what Mike said above. I’ve had great experience with Zallas Technologies as well. They helped me with managing my online reputation for a fair price. Would definitely recommend them. Good luck to everyone!

Stefan said on : October 15th, 2009 at 11:09 am

Like what the article says “there really is no way to COMPLETELY erase information that is already indexed by the search engines”. I’m not sure if there’s any permanent way to remove your name from google. But that’s no reason to lose hope as there are companies out there who can help by moving the bad results/negative information about you out of the first page of the google search results and into the succeeding pages where the bad results will be less noticeable since few people look past the first page of search results anyway.

I’ve had the same problem in the past and I used Reputation-Technologies.com They solved my problem by moving the negative information out of the first page of Google search results. Now when someone googles my name they dont see any negative information on the first few pages of search results and normally people won’t bother looking past the first search results page anyway.

If anyone has the same problem, I’d strongly suggest visiting Reputation-Technologies.com Hope this helps all of you.

April said on : October 15th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

I stumbled upon this site while searching for a way to REMOVE something that was negative and false about me.

http://cleanmy.name/

It’s the one I went for since it fits my budget.

So far so good. I am happy with this service.

Barbara said on : October 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am

Hey does anyone know how I can delete my name from Google? A friend of mine says that she used the website http://www.cleanmy.name to get rid of some bad stuff written about her on Google. When I googled her name now I don’t find the nasty stuff on her anymore so I guess it worked for her. I’ll be trying the website too if my fiancee agrees to pay for it.

Drew said on : October 16th, 2009 at 9:52 am

Thought I’d add another in case the others don’t pan out. This one (http://cleanmy.name/) looks pretty straightforward. Anybody heard of these guys before?

Nicholas said on : October 18th, 2009 at 5:14 am

To the people looking for a way to remove their name from Google search, I can say that Zallas Technologies seems to be one of the best. I have a couple of friends who have used them to remove their name from Google search and they were all happy with the services. Hope this helps all you guys out there.

Clare said on : October 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

I have experience with Reputation Technologies too! And I completely agree with Stefan. They got my name off the first pages of Google which is practically the same with deleting my name from Google because no one actually bothers to browse the later pages. I am so happy I went with Reputation Technologies.

Vivianne said on : October 20th, 2009 at 1:55 am

I completely agree with Stefan when he said “there really is no way to COMPLETELY erase information that is already indexed by the search engines.”

Because I felt that he explained himself well and the service he was recommending, I suggested to it my friend. I told her to try Reputation-Technologies.com. Hopefully, it will help her with her dilemma.

Richelle said on : October 20th, 2009 at 3:03 am

I have been researching about services that can help remove my name in google search.

I found this link from Zallas Technologies to be interesting

http://www.zallas.com/remove-b.....press.html

Drew said on : October 20th, 2009 at 9:16 am

Ok, I’ve dug around some more since my last post here and it’s really starting to look like trying to remove your name from google is more trouble than its worth. The “bury it under a ton of other pages” seems to be the favored choice. There are a couple of sites that seem to promise more comprehensive way to deal with how to remove negative links. Like… reputation-technologies.com/ seems to include some kind of professional public relations for the internet along with the usual stuff. Still digging.

Felimonchi said on : October 20th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

Just in case this helps, I signed with CleanMy.Name and now my business is back on track. It’s really difficult when somebody else tries to attack you by starting a smear campaign online. Thanks CleanMy.Name for removing my biz’s name from Google! The negative stuff, anyway. I’m definitely recommending them.

Winnie said on : October 25th, 2009 at 5:04 am

I really really really NEED to delete my name from Google search!!! I did some research and I found out about Zallas Technologies. I think they’re good in what they do…so I’m thinking about going with them…I’m making the right decision, right? (bites nails)

Tanya said on : October 27th, 2009 at 2:21 am

I have to say that the company Zallas offers the best service. Check this site out: http://www.zallas.com/remove-b.....press.html

I had come across a negative article about myself which is true but is not something I wish to be seen by millions of people especially potential employers who might not hire me if they get to read it. Zallas was able to help me and am sure they will do the same for you.

Cathy said on : October 27th, 2009 at 2:57 am

I am glad I found this blog and found a service that can help me with the negative link that is attached to my name. Thanks April. I really like this http://cleanmy.name/. It is simple and not at all expensive.

Tuck said on : October 27th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

How to remove my name from Google search is also something I want to know. Someone just put some nasty stuff about me and I need it gone before my wife sees it. I don’t think it matters whether or not the information posted is true, what I’m saying is it’s nasty and my wife better not see it. I checked all the sites posted here and Reputation Technologies looks good so I think I’m going with it.

Sergey said on : November 5th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

Try http://www.cleanmy.name – worked for me…

Ben said on : November 6th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

This is great! Some of the mistakes I made during my college days have hit the search engines, and I wanted them removed. I tried reputationdefender.com but they seemed to be more of a “pre-emptive” service. I was going to try either removeyourname or integritydefender.com . They both claim to clear results off the first few pages of search engines. Has anyone tried these services with success??

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