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Google Notifying Publishers For Right To Be Forgotten Removals

Barry Schwartz on July 2, 2014 at 8:56 am

Now that Google has been removing results from the European versions of Google in response to the EU’s Right To Be Forgotten requirements, many webmasters are now receiving notifications of these removals.

Last night, around 10 p.m. EST, I received a notification for a site I have verified Webmaster Tools access from. The notice read:

Notice of removal from Google Search
We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:
[URL(s) go here]
For more information, see https://www.google.com/policies/faq/?hl=en

Here is a picture:

I am not the only one who received this notice. Other webmasters have shown examples of notices they received, as well, including Menachem Rosenbaum and Alex Graves.

The removal notice in the search results looks like this:

While it is unclear for searchers to know for sure if a removal request was made by a specific individual and which specific page was actually removed by looking at the search results, the webmasters are being notified of which pages are being removed from the European search results.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.