Last Updated on February 11, 2021 by Bright Past
Do you have an unflattering picture of yourself that you want to get rid of? Maybe, you’ve already deleted the image from your social media account and managed unwanted image results in Google but it keeps popping up in search? So, how do you get rid of it? There are some basic questions and starting points you can use to remove your image from Google.
Find Out Who Owns it?
If the unflattering image is on your social media account, you can delete it. If someone else has posted a photo of you, kindly ask them to remove it. If the image is on a website, you can ask the site owner to pull it from the website.
What if the Site Owner Doesn’t Want to Remove Your Image?
There may still be hope for you yet! If your image falls under Google’s removal policies, you can appeal to Google directly and they might remove it for you.
The information that Google will remove is as follows:
- Explicit personal images of yourself that were private that you did not make publicly available
- Involuntary fake pornography depicting you where the imagery is fake and was distributed without your consent
- “Doxxing” content showing your ID and bank account number, etc.
- You are the subject of content for a site that is not a business review site, which requires payment to have the content removed
- Other legal reasons
Your Image is Deleted From a Site But the Image Still Appears in Google Images
Google works through an indexing system; therefore, even if your image is removed on one platform, it can take some time for Google to de-index your image from its indexing system. To remove your image from Google faster and ensure it is actually removed, you can use the “Remove Outdated Content” option.
Simply follow the simple steps below to fully remove a deleted image:
- Right-click on the image and copy the URL
- Paste the URL into the box next to “Request Removal” on the “Remove Outdated Content” site
- Click on “Request Removal”
- The image will be removed within a few days
Remember, the “Remove Outdated Content” option only works with images that have already been deleted from a site but have yet to be de-indexed on the Google Search Engine. If you attempt this with images that are still up on the site, nothing will happen.
The Site Owner is Unwilling to Remove Your Photo & Appeals to Google Don’t Work
Then, how do you hide Google search results? The only possible option left to you is to create a golden reputation where bad online photos don’t affect your new ones. This reduces the visibility of old and less searched images. The trick is to make people believe that the negative image isn’t as relevant as the positive content.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this:
- Create better images that portray you in a good light
- Name them properly to cater to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Embed these images in the content of various sites
- Make sure the content on those sites revolves around the images you’ve embedded
By naming the pictures with specific keywords that people search for, they’ll appear in the top results as compared to the bad picture that might just be titled “765157.jpg.” By using a well-written, relevant code to embed the pictures is also very important as it serves the same function as the specific keywords.
When the good image appears near the top, more people will click on it which will move it further up to the top and the “less-clicked on image” will be moved further down to the bottom as the engine adapts to people’s tastes and interests. Congratulations, you have successfully saved your reputation without even having to remove that bad photo.
Why Go With BrightPast?
Unless you’re a web developer, you probably won’t have the knowledge on how to embed codes for your pictures. Creating sites, embedding your content on those and other third-party sites is a lot of work and takes experience. You can trust BrightPast to take care of this important task for you. BrightPast has the experience combined with the online reputation for burying images and making them ancient news.