John Mueller, Google SEO expert, explained in a chat with users on Twitter how the link removal tool works URL removal tool of the company and why, according to some users, it has not worked properly in the past few months.
The Google Search Console link removal tool temporarily hides a URL but does not completely remove it from Google indexing.
Mueller’s statement relates to a question about a website that has been hacked and is generating several spammy websites in Japanese. In the conversation, the user explains that after regaining control of the page and cleaning up the code on the website, they used Google’s link removal tool to delete all URLs generated by spam pages. However, Google search results They showed these pages over and over again with 404 error messages that hurt SEO.
Below are the tweets where the conversation takes place and where the user @DigitalSearchIN explains the case of the hack and asks Miller why Google keeps showing the pages with error 404 even though they were removed with the URL Removal Tool :
Hi there @ JohnMu Here is an interesting case to read
A website under attack «Japanese spam», the owner cleans the code, optimizes and secures the website, but the search results take their own time to produce decent results.
– DigitalSearch (@DigitalSearchIN) January 5, 2021
In his response, Miller explained to the user that the URL removal tool was the search console is not completely deleted Google indexes pages but temporarily hides them until the search engine reanalyzes the page and re-indexes its content. Therefore, when you use this tool, indexing is not removed. However, if Google is checked, it won’t show up when searching for users.
Here is the tweet with Mueller’s answer:
The URL Removal Tool in the Search Console only temporarily hides pages from search results and does not remove anything from the index. Sometimes these pages take a while to reindex (and usually these are less likely to come up in searches anyway, so few people will see them).
– 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 5, 2021
