Remove a site from Google completely

by 9 replies
11
ETA: The question is in the last paragraph if you aren't interested in the details.

I recently took down a website that I no longer wanted to use, it was new and never developed and no SEO was done for it, but it was fully indexed by Google.

I had that domain 301 redirected to my main site just so customers who type it in could get to my main site (the domain name of the website I took down is on printed ads such as fliers).

The site that I took down was a WordPress site, I think that's important to mention. Altho it was only a 5 page website, Google has 35+ things indexed such as "www.domain.com/?attachment_id=104"

Anyway, today I find a bunch of Crawl Errors in WebMaster Tools for my main site, lots of "Not Founds".

So Google is going to the main site but with the extension (such as "?attachment_id=104") from the old site which is either showing up as a 404 OR it's showing up as my main site's homepage but it's REALLY screwed up and the formatting is wacky.

So, instead of trying to redirect all these web pages (that had no backlinks anyway) I'd rather just clear them off of Google completely. I thought that is what would happen, but if it's still going to a screwed up version of my homepage, then it's not going to roll off of Google.

So how do a take a website off of Google completely?
#search engine optimization #completely #google #remove #site
  • You don't need to. The googlebot will eventually give up.

    But if you still use the old domain, there was no reason to 301 it.
    Either link to the new site, or do a meta refresh.

    Since you have to pay webhosting to do a 301, why not get something
    you are paying for?

    The solution you want, seems to just take the site offline. No hosting.
    Then do a redirect from where your domain is maintained at. Those
    are generally free. That way, after a short time, the old site disappears.

    IMHO, people overthink 301 and new domains. What they really should do
    is take advantage of indexed content and the power of another site.

    I never understood paying for webhosting if you are going to do a 301.
    Makes no sense. That's not what a 301 was designed for. Domains should
    be taken offline and forwarded in cases like yours.

    Paul
    • [1] reply
    • I'm not paying for webhosting for the second domain, I can put multiple domains and websites on my single hosting plan. I don't want the second website at all, but I do want people who type it in to be able to find my company which is why i redirected it. A 301 redirect seemed to be the best way.

      As far as this statement, "You don't need to. The googlebot will eventually give up.". I don't believe that is true if the redirect for those files is going to my other website (albeit, a screwed up and unformatted webpage, which could hurt me).
  • you have to edit your robot.txt file.so that after editing google bots will not crawl your site
    • [1] reply
    • The domain is redirected. The robot.txt file is worthless.
  • If you want to remove a site completely from Google then first you need to block the search engines from Robots.txt. Once it is done then login to your webmaster tool and remove the URLs. If will take few days.
  • [DELETED]
  • You guys aren't listening.

    When a domain is redirected, robots.txt doesn't matter. Google can't see it.

    I found the way to remove the entire site in Webmaster Tools without having to remove each page, it worked.
  • Yes via Webmaster Tools -> URL Removal --> Remove URL - just write "/"

    Your site will be wiped out off Google very soon.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • At first I did "www.domain.com/" and it asked about deleting the directory.

      But then I did "www.domain.com" without a slash and it said it would wipe the entire site. So apparently both "/" or "domain.com" without a slash will work.
      • [1] reply
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    Remove a site from Google completely

    ETA: The question is in the last paragraph if you aren't interested in the details. I recently took down a website that I no longer wanted to use, it was new and never developed and no SEO was done for it, but it was fully indexed by Google.