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Google has [released some new tools][1] to help those looking to remove their content from the search giant's indexes. The new tools are mix of options for site owners to quickly remove pages and cached copies of pages, as well as more [general options][2] to request the removal of any pages.
Of course the best way to keep Google from indexing your content is still the robots.txt files that should live in your server's root directory. However if you change your mind about Google indexing a page, in the past it has taken some time to get it removed. The new tools aim to speed up that process.
The new site owner tools can be found within [Google Webmaster Central][3]. Login to your account and choose the "Diagnostics" tab. You'll then see a new link named "URL Removals" which gives you four options, allowing you to remove individual URLs, whole directories, an entire site, or cached copies.
Because Google caches can hang around unchanged for months, that last option is a welcome addition. If Google has cached a page with content that you've moved for instance, it's now easy to update the cache without changing how Google indexes the rest of your site.
After submitting a request to remove content you can track the progress using the "Current Requests" tab on the the URL Removals page. Google says requests should be processed in within 3 to 5 days.
So what about content on sites your don't control -- say your Facebook account for instance?
Google has added some third party content removal options, but the options are somewhat limited given the nature of the task.
If there's a page somewhere that your don't like (damnit why did I post that picture of the tutu party on Flickr?) and you (or the site owner) deletes the page but it still shows up in Google's cache, you can log in to your Google Account and request the cache be cleared.
So long as the live page no longer exists, Google will clear the cached page.
And there's no need to panic, if you're a site owner no one is going to be able to delete your pages from Google. Google will only remove the cache if the live page no longer exists.
However, you might want to freak out a little bit about another tool that lets third parties delete cached pages.
Say there's a *portion* of a page you don't like, and the site owner doesn't want to remove the whole page (which eliminates the aforementioned technique) but does remove the part you don't like. You can then submit the URL, tell Google what words have been removed and if Google confirms that, it will delete the cached page.
The problem is that this is potentially open to abuse. Google says abuse is not an issue and in fact the tool has been around for a while, but with the new publicity drive, I say that significantly ups the abuse potential.
The other big tool in today's announcement is one for removing pages that contain personal information. Say someone decides to post your social security number, credit card info or creates a fake profile somewhere using your name and puts explicit images in it; using a Google account you can now make sure that those pages aren't listed in Google's index.
Despite the fact that there is some potential for abuse in at least one of these tools, today's announcement should be welcome news for webmasters. Particularly the cache removal tools as the only real option prior to today was to wait a few months until Google updated its cache.
[1]: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/04/requesting-removal-of-content-from-our.html "Requesting removal of content from our index"
[2]: http://www.Google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35301&topic=8459 "How can I prevent content from being indexed or remove content from Google's index? "
[3]: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools "Google Webmaster Tools"
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