Google notifies site administrators when search result has been removed

Google will notify site administrators if it has removed a search result at the request of a user. The site administrator won’t be told who made the request, although it will be traceable from the deleted page.

Site administrators receive an email about the removal via Google Webmaster Tools, SERoundtable reports. It states which pages have been removed from the search results of the European versions of Google, with URLs. Based on that, site administrators can presumably find out who made the request, because it’s the pages the submitters think is harming them. If site administrators then move that content to another page, it could be visible again in search results.

With the removals, Google is fulfilling a European Court ruling a few months ago. The Court ruled that search engines must allow the removal of search results. In addition, the Court says that what matters is that the search results violate privacy law and Europeans should therefore have the right ‘to be forgotten’. The case involved a Spaniard whose house had been auctioned off for debt years ago; those search results kept coming up.

The Court has taken into account the fact that search engines bundle information from multiple sites in the results. “The information potentially relates to many aspects of private life that would have been impossible or only very difficult to relate without the search engine,” the ruling reads. This would enable internet users to draw up a detailed profile of the persons searched for. Another important aspect of the possible infringement is the major role of the internet and search engines today, which can ensure great availability of the information.

People who want to remove a result can submit that request through a form provided by Google. The search engine gives a message that search results may be incomplete and refers to a page on its own site about removing the results. The search engine began removing results at the request of users on Thursday.