SERP de-indexing is the removal of a specific URL from search engine results pages, so it stops appearing in searches even though the page itself may still exist.
De-indexing, also called delisting, acts on the search engine rather than the website. Search engines remove results under their own policies — Google, for example, removes certain personal information such as contact details, ID numbers and doxxing content, non-consensual intimate imagery, and results from sites with exploitative removal practices — and under legal requests such as copyright notices, court orders and, in the EU and UK, the right to be forgotten.
Delisting under the right to be forgotten applies to searches for the person's name and is applied in Europe rather than worldwide, so the page can still be reached through other searches or directly by its address. Removal at the source is the only way to make the content itself disappear.
In practice
De-indexing is the right tool when the publisher will not remove a page, or cannot be reached, but the result meets a search-engine policy or a legal ground. It is also what clears a page that has already been deleted but still lingers in results. Each URL is assessed separately, so every link needs its own request and evidence, and other search engines such as Bing handle their own requests.
Source: Google Search Help — Remove my private info from Google Search ↗
Related removals
- SERP de-indexing — $1,500 per URL, pay on success
- Personal info on Google — $1,500 per URL, pay on success
- News article removal — $1,500 per URL, pay on success
Related terms
- Source removal — Source removal means deleting content where it is actually published — on the website, platform or server that hosts it — rather than only hiding it from search results.
- Right to be forgotten — The right to be forgotten lets people in the EU and UK ask search engines to delist results about them that are outdated, irrelevant or excessive, unless the public interest outweighs it.
- Outdated content removal — Outdated content removal is asking a search engine to update or drop a result whose page has already been deleted or changed, so the old title and snippet stop appearing.
- Doxxing — Doxxing is publishing someone's private personal information — such as a home address, phone number or ID details — to expose, harass or endanger them.
- GDPR Article 17 — GDPR Article 17 is the EU right to erasure: people can require an organisation to delete their personal data when a ground listed in the law applies and no exception overrides it.