From Leo's mailbag:
> From: A Computer User
> Sent: May 13, 2005
> To: Ask Leo!
> Subject: Removing myself from the search engines?
>
> Leo,
> It was unwise of me to take part and put in my name in some
> guestbooks.Therefore ,I\'d like to remove my information from
> the search results of the major search
> engines:google,yahoo...etc.I must point out that I tried but
> in vain to contact the webmasters of those sites.I\'m
> becoming fussier about that and it\'s getting more awkward as
> far as my profession is concerned.Would u please assist me in
> dealing with this problem?
In my opinion, it's a lost cause. The search engines often have
opportunities for webmaster to remove specific *pages* from the
search results, it a) does have to be a page or an entire site,
and b) they'll only do it at the request of the owner of the site.
On top of that there are many services and sites which take
additional cached snapshots of webpages for historical records
(the internet archive, archive.org, is one good example).
So I don't have an answer or an approach for you, other than to
avoid things such as those guest books in the future.
Thanks for asking,
Leo
Article 205
| Category:
Internet