This Google Tool Can Help Hide Your Personal Info From Search

"Don't Google yourself" is terrible advice. If there's personal information about you floating around on the web, you should be aware of it—because, despite common misconceptions, the internet is not written in ink. If your info is popping up on Google Search, you might be able to get rid of it.

On Wednesday, Google announced its redesigned "Results about you" tool. This feature, first rolled out in 2023, looks out for your personal information on Google Search, including your name, phone number, email addresses, and home addresses. The tool then tries to remove any information it does find. Note that this doesn't necessarily delete that information from the website in question; rather, it affects outdated info that appears in Search. For example, you requested a site take down your address, or you edited a webpage to reflect your new phone number, but that deleted data still shows up when people search your name.

Using Google's "Results about you" tool

Here's how the tool works. First, head to the "Results about you" website. If this is your initial experience with Results about you, click Get started. You'll be presented with a series of pop-ups, walking you through what to expect: You share your personal info, and Google scans the web looking for that info. If Google finds that info, you can ask the company to remove it.

Click Next through each pop-up, then punch in your personal information, which includes your full name, nicknames, home address, phone number, and email. For example, I included my full name, a nickname, two recent addresses, my phone number, and three email addresses. Confirm you are indeed the person who this contact info belongs to, then hit Continue.

From here, you'll have the option to choose how you want to receive alerts if Google finds your information on the web. You can have Google email you, send you push notifications through the Google app, or both. Once these settings are confirmed, you're done! Google says the process usually takes a few hours, and the company will notify you when it is finished—presumably via the alert method you previously chose.

Heading back to the Results about you dashboard, you'll find a "Results found" section, which will list any personal information Google happened to find in its search. There are two categories: "Results to review," which lists any data Google returns, and "Reviewed," which stores any results you've already checked out. Under Settings, you can change how Google notifies you with its results, as well as any of the data you want Google looking for.

When you do ask Google to remove a piece of personal information from Search, you'll find that inquiry is added to a section beneath "Results found" called "Removal requests." Here, you'll see whether your requests are in progress, approved, denied, or undone (if you decide to undo a request).

You can also send a request to remove a result from the search page itself. Just click the three dots next to any given search result, and choose "Remove this result." Then, select the reason why—likely, "It shows my personal info and I don't want it there."

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