How To Remove My Name From Google Searches

If you are wondering how to remove your name from Google searches, or, at very least, minimize the amount of times your name appears online, you have come to the right place. 

In this article, we will show you a number of ways that you can limit how often your name appears through Google searches.

How To Remove My Name From Google Searches

So, let’s get started.

Can You Remove Your Name From Google Searches?

So, let’s cut straight to the chase here… is it even possible to completely remove something from Google searches?

Many of us grew up with the same piece of advice from our parents: once something gets posted on the internet, it stays there forever.

We may have shrugged this off when we were younger, but, unfortunately, they weren’t completely wrong.

Once something has been posted online, the likelihood is that it will remain online for the rest of time.

Even if you delete a photograph that you uploaded to Facebook 12 years ago, the data will still exist, and may even still be found later.

So, no, you cannot completely remove your name from Google search results. Your parents were right: once it is there, it is very hard to get rid of.

The fact that Google is such an advanced search engine is the primary reason you cannot just remove your name from Google, or even block it, from surfacing in search results. 

Instead of hosting the content that appears in its search results, Google searches other websites for content that matches the query. The same rules apply to several other search engines, including Yahoo and Bing.

However, there are ways to minimize the amount of times that it shows up through Google search results.

So, instead of trying to remove the searches completely, there are ways you can prevent people from finding your name online.

How To Prevent Your Name From Appearing In Online Searches

Although it is impossible to completely prevent search engines from returning results containing your name when you conduct a search, there are steps you can take to confront the primary sources of the specific data that you want to remove.

Of course, when it comes to removing your name from Google searches, it will depend on how well known you are as a person.

For instance, it would be considerably more challenging for Johnny Depp to entirely erase his name from the internet than it would be for your unidentified next-door neighbor.

The less likely people are to Google your name, the easier it will be to prevent your name from showing up when people do Google your name.

Below, we have listed a handful of ways that you can prevent your name from appearing in online searches, including Google. 

Privatizing Your Social Media

Privatizing Your Social Media

In 2022, it is pretty rare to find any person under a certain age that doesn’t have some form of social media.

Most people have their own social media account, whether it be through Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, or anything else.

These companies rank extremely high on most search engines, including Google.

If you have an account with any of these companies, and any of your usernames include your real name, it is likely that your account will appear when someone searches for your name.

If you are a person who has an extremely common name, e.g., John Smith, it may take a while for someone to find your account.

There will be hundreds and thousands of John Smith’s on every social networking site, therefore it is unlikely that your account would show up on the first page of Google.

Make sure that, when you make a social networking account intended for personal use, you don’t use your real name in your username. This way, your name will not be connected to your account.

Another way to minimize the results that show up while your name is being searched is to keep all your personal accounts privatized.

This way, the only people that can view your pages are those who you allow to view your pages.

Your safest option, though, is to delete all your social medias. While this won’t completely clear your name online, it will minimize the results that show up online.

Locate The Sources Of The Results

Another way to minimize searches linked to your name online is to locate the sources of said results, and directly contact the owners of the data.

You must ask particular websites to stop storing your information in order to remove it from the results outside of your control, such as your social network accounts. This is known as “opting out.”

The alternative course of action, if that’s not possible, is to get in touch with the website’s owner directly and request that they remove your personal data.

To request removal from some websites, such as blogs, corporate websites, and public records, you will need to contact the owners directly.

To ask for the withdrawal of any posts about you, you will need to conduct some investigation and locate the owners of these pages.

‘Replacing’ The Searches (Outranking Bad Results)

While it can be difficult to ‘remove’ your name from searches, there is one trick you can use: you can create more content to overwrite the previously uploaded content.

By providing Google’s algorithm with fresh, pertinent content about you, the idea is to push everything you wish to hide onto the second or third search results page. 

Create new social media accounts, start a personal website or blog, write blog entries, or even write press releases under your name to do this.

Final Thoughts

So, overall, there is no way to completely remove your name from Google searches. 

The best you can do is minimize the amount of times your name appears through searches.

You can do this by privatizing your social media, directly contact owners of specific sites, and create new content to overwrite the old posts that you don’t want to be found by others.

We hope you found this article useful.

Justin Shaw