# Get Stuff Taken Off Google (cuz it's a dead link)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-stuff-taken-off-google-cuz-its-a-dead-link/337427>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 28, 2005, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-stuff-taken-off-google-cuz-its-a-dead-link/337427 "2005-12-28T09:57:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![drbuzz0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@drbuzz0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drbuzz0)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-stuff-taken-off-google-cuz-its-a-dead-link/337427/1 "2005-12-28T09:57:49Z")

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Hi.

I was looking around google when I found a couple pages which had some information about someone I know which probably shouldn’t be on the internet anymore. The pages are gone and have been taken down quite a while ago, but google still returns the URL’s.

The stuff is not up anymore, but a snippit of it apears in the Google description. Also, one of the pages has a Google cache, however, it only goes one page in depth and doesn’t include graphics.

I know Google doesn’t make a policy of taking down search results just becaue somebody doesn’t like them up there. Although, I’ve heard they do sometimes take down stuff that violates major laws.

However, it seems valid to me to have the results taken down on the baisis that they point to pages which no longer exist.

Is there any way I can request this from them?

Thanks  
Steve

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**Author:** ![Geochelone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ccd318/32.png) [@Geochelone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geochelone)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-stuff-taken-off-google-cuz-its-a-dead-link/337427/2 "2005-12-28T10:32:11Z")

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I don’t know if this is possible. Next time their spider updates their directory the results will disappear, however. This may take a week or two.

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**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-stuff-taken-off-google-cuz-its-a-dead-link/337427/3 "2005-12-28T11:02:59Z")

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> [@Google](#):
>
> Google updates its entire index automatically on a regular basis. When we crawl the web, we find new pages, discard dead links, and update links automatically. Links that are outdated now will most likely “fade out” of our index during our next crawl.
> 
> Note: If you believe your request is urgent and cannot wait until the next time Google crawls your site, use our automatic URL removal system. We’ll accept your removal request only if the page returns a true 404 error via the http headers. Please ensure that you return a true 404 error even if you choose to display a more user-friendly body of the HTML page for your visitors. It won’t help to return a page that says “File Not Found” if the http headers still return a status code of 200, or normal.

[http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html](http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html)