Step 1:
Before going to your Search Console account, you must delete the page or pages that are causing you problems. To do this, you have several options: you can simply delete the files corresponding to the root of your site. Verify that a 404 or 410 error codeis then returned by the server and the content is no longer visible to Internet users (except in the cached version). If you want the page to remain accessible to your visitors but not indexed by Google, you can use the no index tag. This must be placed in the source code of the page concerned. Another alternative: list the URLs of pages that should not be taken into account by search engines in the robots.txt file. This option is particularly useful if you want the page to remain indexed by certain search engines (like Yahoo or Bing). You will then need to indicate it in the robots.txt file using the User-Agent value .
Step 2:
Once you have deleted your web page, you can log in to your Search Console account . Click on the thumbnail or the URL of the site concerned. In the left menu, click on the "Google Index" link. A submenu appears. Click on the last link "URL to delete".
Step 3:
The URL page to be deleted has a gray button labeled "Temporarily hide". Click this button. Note: under this button, you will find the history of your deleted pages. If you have never used this option, the list will be empty. This history will later allow you to track the status of your deletion requests .
Step 4:
A form appears asking you to enter the URL of the page you want to delete. Please note that you must not enter the full URL which includes your domain name but only the name of your page preceded by a slash, for example: /pagename.html (instead of www.index.com/pagename. html, then click the gray "Continue" button.
Step 5:
A drop-down menu then opens, offering you 3 choices:
- Temporarily hide the page from search results and remove it from the cache : choose this option if you want your page to no longer appear in Google's index, as well as its cached version (the cache is the version of a web page recorded at a time "t" by Google, it is only accessible when the Internet user clicks on the inverted triangle located next to the URLs in the search results pages).
- Delete page from cache only : Choose this solution so that the cached version of your page is no longer visible (but it will still appear in Google's index).
- Temporarily hide the directory : this option is interesting if you have a large number of pages to delete within the same directory. This way you won't have to repeat the manual deletion operation for each of the pages since the entire directory will be deindexed.
Step 6:
Once the deletion option has been chosen, all you have to do is validate your choice by clicking on the gray button "Send the request". You will then be able to track the status of your removal requests using the dashboard on the "URLs to remove" page. In the event of an error or mishandling, you always have the option of canceling your request, provided that it has not already been processed by Google.
Delete pages with 301 redirects
Many webmasters decide to set up 301 redirects in order to avoid generating too many 404 errors. This solution is wise to prevent Internet users from being tempted to leave the site when they come across a page 'mistake. In this case, you can use the Search Console tool to speed up the de-indexing of old redirected pages.