Even if you edit or remove outdated content from your own web pages, that information can still appear as cached data or snippets in Google’s search results for weeks or even months.
Thankfully, you can manually request for content to be scrubbed by using Google’s Content Removal Tool!
Simply make a request for Google to remove any outdated content and voilà — in roughly 24 hours or so, you’ll be good to go.
This article will explain step by step:
Let’s dig into the details of removing content with the help of Google.
To summarize, the tool is used to remove outdated content from a page appearing in Google’s search results.
Ready to use the tool? You can find it in Google Search Console. It’s configured as a simple form so making a request is a no-brainer.
Alternatively, you can type “remove outdated content tool” into Google, and we’re confident that the SERPs will get you where you need to be!
Keep in mind that all submissions are manually checked, so there will be no immediate action. Google will remove specific content and related caches over several days or weeks (depending on the site’s crawl rate).
If you want to remove a specific image the process is slightly different (we’ll get to that shortly).
You should only use the Google Remove Outdated Content Tool under the following circumstances:
Misinformation spread by outdated content can hurt your business, especially if you are in the food or medical industry where up-to-date information matters.
Here are some more specific situations where you’ll want to remove content using the Google Remove Outdated Content Tool:
While this tool can be incredibly useful, there are definitely some instances where you’ll want to skip using it:
For more information, visit Google’s help center.
Ready to get started? Read on for a step-by-step guide on how to remove outdated content based on page URLs and picture URLs.
Go to the Outdated Content Removal Tool form and hit “New Request”.
Enter the URL of the page you want and it will analyze if it is still live.
Choose the appropriate response, then click “New Request” again.
Enter a word or number that appears in the cached version that no longer exists on the live web.
This step helps the tool verify that you have chosen the correct page.
Hit “Request Removal” for the final time. You’ll get a prompt saying Google has received your request.
After you finish submitting your request, you can keep track of its progress in Google Search Console.
But how long does it take for Google to remove outdated content upon request?
Typically, these requests take about 24 hours to process.
You can keep track of your request to see where it’s at in the process. It will be listed under one of the following categories:
Go to the Outdated Content Removal Tool form and hit “New Request”. Next, click on the “Image” tab.
Enter the image URL along with the page URL.
Choose the appropriate response and click “New Request” again.
Hit “Submit Request” for the final time. You’ll get a prompt saying Google has received your request.
You can monitor the removal status in Google Search Console just like when you’re removing a page.
While you’ll never be able to have complete control over what others choose to write about your products and services online, you can ensure that your own content is up to date.
You can use the Content Audit Tool to easily monitor your own website content and remove anything outdated as needed.
Ensuring your content is up to date is important; by providing the most accurate information about your business, you’ll maintain (or build) customer trust.
Learn how to use the Content Audit Tool for monitoring your own site below.
The Content Audit Tool is designed to audit content within the subfolders of a website and provide data on a page’s performance.
The tool currently has the following limits for each Semrush subscription level:
Once you open the tool, it will analyze your sitemap file and display all URLs that you have sorted into subfolders.
Select the subfolders you want to audit by checking the relevant boxes.
If for some reason we can’t find the sitemap from your URLs or your robots.txt, you will be asked to provide a link directly to your sitemap.
If the sitemap is in progress or inaccessible, you can submit a list of URLs for analysis. The file for upload should be a .txt, .xml, or .csv file and be less than 100 MB in size.
If you’d like to change the scope, update the sitemap address, or upload another file, click on the “Settings” button and select “Restart Audit”.
You will be brought to the main screen of the tool where you can re-enter the data for your audit.
The “Content Sets” tab will be available after you connect your Google Analytics account. This section categorizes your content into four areas depending on how users interact with it:
To create customized content sets, click the “add set” button.
You can then manually name this set and organize by parameters such as:
Go to the “Table” tab to get a breakdown of your website content data.
Here you can view gathered data about your Pages, Shares, and Backlinks.
The table is also customizable. Use the “Manage Columns” drop-down to remove any unwanted columns from your table.
Additionally, you can add custom columns to the table by selecting the “Add Custom Column” button.
You can use filters to accurately sort specific fields as another way to search and prioritize weak content.
Select “Save Filter View” when creating a new filter to save several custom search tags.
Here you can create and assign “Tasks” for each page.
Monitoring your content is crucial, but it’s important to actually take action on any issues or opportunities that you find!
The specific task goes into an “In Progress” workflow status and the current version of the content will save automatically.
You can track the progress of the task by opening the “Metrics” tab.
If no workflow has been created for a specific URL, it will be categorized as “Not Set”.
Once you start to make progress, you can update the task to “In Progress”.
When the task is complete, label it “Done”!
To export the audit, simply go to the “Table” view and find the “Export XLSX” button in the bottom right.
This will provide a spreadsheet of all your pages to audit and their accompanying metrics.
Now get out there and audit your content!
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