Googling your own name and finding your home address, phone number, and personal details listed in the results is unsettling — and increasingly common. The good news: Google has tools to help you remove this information. The bad news: most people don't know they exist.
Google's "Results About You" Tool
Google launched a feature called "Results About You" that lets you request removal of search results containing your personal information. To access it:
- Go to myaccount.google.com/results-about-you
- Set up alerts for your name, phone number, and address
- When Google finds results containing your personal info, you can request their removal directly from the dashboard
This tool is specifically designed to remove results that show your home address, phone number, email address, and similar personal details from Google search.
What Google Will Remove
Google's policies allow removal of search results that contain:
- Your home address
- Your phone number
- Your email address
- Login credentials
- Credit card or bank account numbers
- Explicit images shared without your consent
- Medical or financial records
What Google Won't Remove
Google won't remove results just because you don't like them. Public records, news articles, and information that's genuinely in the public interest will typically stay. The tool is for personal identifying information, not reputation management.
Request Removal of Specific Pages
For pages that don't qualify under the "Results About You" tool, you can submit a removal request at support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/9685456. This is a manual review process and results vary.
Contact the Website Directly
Removing a result from Google search doesn't remove it from the website hosting the information. Data broker sites like Spokeo, Whitepages, and BeenVerified have their own opt-out processes that you'll need to complete separately. Removing your listing from those sites — not just from Google's index of those sites — is what actually protects you.
Set Up Google Alerts
Go to google.com/alerts and create an alert for your full name. You'll get notified by email whenever new results appear, so you can submit removal requests promptly.
The Bigger Picture
Google is just the index. The actual data lives on data broker sites, public records databases, and background check services. Removing results from Google is a good first step, but comprehensive privacy protection requires removing your information from the source.