It’s a sinking feeling to search for your name or business in Google, only to find content that is embarrassing, detrimental, or damaging to your reputation.
Whether you made a mistake in the past, or are under attack from someone who has it out for you, your reputation is threatened.
The good news is, there are actions you can take to attempt to remove the content from Google search results swiftly. With the right approach, you can work towards regaining control over your online presence and repairing your reputation.
This involves working directly with website administrators, taking legal action, or deleting content that you control. Follow these steps.
Negative content refers to any online material that harms, damages, or portrays an individual, business or brand in a harmful, unflattering, or unfavorable light.
This can include posts, news articles, comments, and more – whether the information is false, exaggerated, or even based on something true.
In many cases, negative content spreads regardless of who’s at fault. It may involve personal mistakes, misleading claims, or even defamatory or illegal material that violates your rights.
Negative content can appear in many places online, anywhere your name, brand, or business might be mentioned can also appear on a search engine results page:
News Websites – Both local and national news outlets may publish stories that harm your reputation.
Social Media Platforms – Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and forums where people post comments or reviews.
Review Sites – Yelp, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, Google Reviews, or niche industry-specific review sites.
Blogs and Personal Websites – Individual bloggers or websites may post content that portrays you or your business negatively.
Video Platforms – YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, or other video hosting platforms may contain negative mentions.
Discussion Forums and Communities – Reddit, Quora, niche forums, or comment sections of news sites.
Archived or Cached Content – Even if original content is deleted, it may remain in archives, web caches, or screenshots.
Negative content can appear in many places online, anywhere your name, brand, or business might be mentioned can also appear on a search engine results page:
News Websites – Both local and national news outlets may publish stories that harm your reputation.
Social Media Platforms – Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and forums where people post comments or reviews.
Review Sites – Yelp, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, Google Reviews, or niche industry-specific review sites.
Blogs and Personal Websites – Individual bloggers or websites may post content that portrays you or your business negatively.
Video Platforms – YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, or other video hosting platforms may contain negative mentions.
Discussion Forums and Communities – Reddit, Quora, niche forums, or comment sections of news sites.
Archived or Cached Content – Even if original content is deleted, it may remain in archives, web caches, or screenshots.
Over time, Google has evolved beyond simple text links, now displaying a variety of features on the search engine results page (SERP) that can include negative mentions. This makes it even more important to understand what you’re up against.
Here are the most common types of results where negative content can appear:
Scroll to see all Google SERP features:
Standard website links that appear in search results. Google crawls the web using its algorithms, indexing pages based on relevance, authority, keywords, and user engagement signals.
Summary boxes generated by AI that pull information from multiple sources, including websites, structured data, and publicly available databases, to provide a concise answer or overview.
Highlighted answers at the top of Google that aim to quickly answer search queries. Google selects content from indexed pages that best matches the query, often pulling text, tables, or lists directly from high-ranking sites.
Expandable Q&A boxes that surface related questions. Google dynamically generates these from search patterns and indexed content, pulling snippets from websites it deems authoritative for each question.
Information boxes about people, brands, or organizations. Google sources data from structured databases like Wikidata, Wikipedia, authoritative websites, and verified submissions via Google’s Knowledge Graph.
A map and listing of local businesses related to a search. Google pulls this information from Google Business Profiles, local reviews, location data, and other online signals like citations and ratings.
A carousel of relevant videos appearing in search results. Videos are pulled from platforms like YouTube or indexed video content from the web based on relevance, metadata, and engagement metrics.
Images from websites that appear in search results. Google indexes images based on file names, alt text, surrounding page content, and structured data to determine relevance.
News articles shown in a carousel or box on the SERP. Google sources content from publishers indexed through Google News or from high-authority sites, prioritizing freshness, relevance, and credibility.
Aggregated content from multiple sites shown in summary boxes. Google pulls snippets, quotes, or statistics from authoritative sources to provide a condensed view without linking to a single page.
Posts from platforms like Reddit, Quora, or other forums. Google indexes these public discussions from forums, Q&A sites, and community boards based on relevance, recency, and engagement.
Negative content falls into 5 categories:
Type of Negative Content | Definition | Examples |
Mistakes | Content where you are at fault for a mistake, which may negatively impact your reputation, especially if widely shared. |
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Misinformation | False or inaccurate information spread without malicious intent, but still potentially misleading. |
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Defamatory Content | False or malicious statements that harm an individual’s or organization’s reputation (includes slander or libel). |
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Discriminatory Content | Content that promotes harm, division, or prejudice, and often violates platform guidelines or legal regulations. |
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Illegal Content | Content that violates laws and can lead to criminal charges or legal consequences. |
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The experts at Reputation911 can help you remove negative or unwanted content from Google search results, quickly.
Negative content can feel overwhelming, but you’re not stuck with it forever. With the right steps, you can remove harmful material and take back control of your online reputation. Stay calm, focus on solutions, and know that it is possible to fix your search results.
Here’s how to manage emotionally while working on solutions:
You can’t fix everything overnight, but this guide will help you take back control.
If unwanted or harmful content is impacting your online reputation, there are several steps you can take to address it. Follow these steps to help you manage and potentially remove negative content online.
Once you’ve found the negative content and where it’s published, your first step is to contact the site owner or webmaster. Ask if they’re willing to remove the page or post directly from their website.
Before reaching out, check the site’s content removal policy or terms of service. Some platforms have clear rules about what can be taken down – and how to request it.
How you approach a website or publication, will depend on the type of negative content in question:
If you’re able to have the site owner successfully remove the content in question, take the precaution of using the Refresh Outdated Content Tool to ensure it is also removed in search results.
While the final three types of content may ultimately lead to a lawsuit (see step four), it is generally advisable to reach out to a website first, to resolve the issue – it is more efficient and less costly.
Google won’t remove everything, but they do offer tools for taking down certain types of harmful, sensitive, or illegal content.
If your content doesn’t fall under one of these types, you will likely not be able to use Google Removal Tools.
Google offers free tools to help remove unwanted content from search results. While they won’t remove the content from the internet entirely, these tools can stop harmful pages from appearing in search results when people search for your name on Google.
To submit a removal request for an individual page that appears in search results, follow these steps.
Click on the three dots to the top-right of the result title. This will pull up a separate menu on the right of the page. Click “Remove Result”.
Next, choose your reason for removal – either personal information, you have a legal removal request, or it’s outdated. Follow the prompts to complete your removal request.
Check out our other blog post to learn how to remove an image from Google search results.
You can also use the following removal tools:
These tools are easy to use and effective for cleaning up your online presence.
If content removal has not worked to this point, the next step to try is search engine suppression.
While this doesn’t remove content entirely, it does involve strategies to push down negative search results off the first page of Google, so people are far less likely to see them. This is done through content creation, which pushes down unwanted results instead of removing them completely from a Google search.
In fact, 91.5% of people never even go to the second page of Google.
This strategy works best for negative content related to past mistakes or misinformation about you – two types of content that (depending on the details) you may not be able to remove from search results with Google’s content removal tools.
If negative content about you appears in Google search results and efforts to remove it via other methods haven’t worked, you may consider legal action.
Legal action is a strategy that applies to content that is not a mistake that you’re at fault for: defamatory, misinformation, discriminatory, or illegal content.
If content breaches privacy policies—such as doxxing or invasion of privacy—legal steps may be taken. Sharing your private information online without consent could violate your privacy rights.
Type of Content | Legal Action to Take |
Defamatory Content |
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Misinformation |
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Discriminatory Content |
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Privacy Violations (ex: Doxxing) |
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Hate Speech |
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Illegal Content (ex: Child Exploitation, Fraud, Malware) |
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Cyberbullying or Harassment |
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If you’re struggling to get content taken down or keep running into dead ends, you’re not alone. Some cases are too complex – or too sensitive – to handle by yourself.
At Reputation911, we specialize in content removal services to address harmful or unwanted content and restoring your name across search engines, websites, and social media.
Take back control of your online presence. Call us at 866-697-3791 or request a free consultation to get started.
