Google tends to remove specific results from their search results fairly quickly when a site owner uses the page removal tool via Google Search Console, but just how fast is it?
The question came up on Twitter, with Google responding that it generally takes less than a day for Google to remove URLs.
This generally takes less than a day, but 30 minutes is probably a bit optimistic :-). Hopefully the dev-site is now properly secured!
— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) June 18, 2018
Google also notes that a 30 minute removal turnaround time is too optimistic. This is especially true as Google updates datacenters at different times, so as the removal is being processed, it is natural to see the number of pages indexed changing as the removal is being processed.
The site owner also followed up and confirmed it took Google 5 hours to remove the results once the removal request was submitted via Search Console. He also mentions a spike in pages indexed after the removal tool was used, but that sounds like usual fluctuations when Google is crawling and indexing a new site.
It's all good now.. Was just not expecting a spike after submitting.. 5 hours it all cleared out, and we've got the blocks in place.
— Jake Bohall (@jakebohall) June 19, 2018
As a reminder, the remove tool only works for 90 days. So you will need to ensure you serve a 404 or noindex those pages before the 90 days is up, if you do not want Google to index those URLs in the future.
Jennifer Slegg
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