Summary
- Google has significantly enhanced its ‘Results about you’ tool, simplifying the process of finding and removing personal information from search results. This includes a redesigned hub with easier sign-up, proactive monitoring that alerts users to new matches, and streamlined removal requests directly from search results.
- The updated tool now allows users to input multiple names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails, enabling more comprehensive scanning for personal information. Users receive notifications via email and push notifications when relevant results are found.
- Google has also improved the ability to update outdated search results. Users can now request a refresh of search results when content has been edited or removed from a webpage, ensuring that search results reflect the latest information.
It’s a reality that our personal information and digital footprints are vulnerable online, and increasingly so. Google knows that this issue could be close to heart for many, and at Google I/O back in 2022, it announced its intentions to make the process of requesting removal of search results about you and personal information easier.
Fast-forward to September 2022, Google began rolling out its “Results about you” tool to help streamline removal requests, and it looks like the tech giant is now revamping the way the tool looks and functions.
Related
How to remove personal information that shows up in a Google search
Scrub your personal details off of Google’s search results
Finding and reporting results about you via the tool is a seamless process. On mobile, you simply head to the Google app, tap the three dots on the top right, and tap on ‘Results about you.’ Finding the tool on desktop is a little bit more convoluted. You need to head to Google app > profile icon > Manage your Google account > Data & privacy > Web & App Activity > Manage all Web & App Activity > Other activity (on the sidebar) > Manage results about you.
With its recent enhancements, Google has essentially redesigned the hub, simplifying the process of identifying and removing sensitive information from search results.
Direct removal requests from the results
“Our new hub makes signing up easier than ever, and with proactive monitoring, we’ll do the hard work for you – alerting you if new results are found,” reads Google’s blog post about the update.
When getting started with the tool, it will now ask you to fill in your full name (you can add multiple names, including your alias, for example). Additionally, you can also add your address, phone number(s), and email(s). If the tool finds relevant information about you, it’ll notify you via email. Additionally, you can also get alerts via push notifications.
As part of the update, users can now initiate removal requests directly by tapping the three dots next to a result in the ‘to review’ and ‘Reviewed’ sections. A new menu will share relevant information on what content can be removed, and it “lets you submit a removal request in fewer clicks.”
Further, in cases where content about you has been edited or removed, but Search is yet to update the changes in results, users will be able to request a refresh. The updated experience is rolling out now, but isn’t widely available just yet.
