Deleted files still appearing on Google search
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Hello! One of our customers was upset because they were referencing prices from an outdated menu pdf that comes up on the google search. In fact, there’s 2 of them I checked our media library and the pdfs have been deleted for a few years now. I requested google to recrawl the site and remove the index and they denied it. Is there another way to remove these links?
Click to access LivyOsMenu.pdf
Click to access Livy_Os_Catering_Menu_Pricing_Sheet.pdf
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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WordPress.com can’t control how search engines index your site and keep ‘outdated’ info in their cache. It all depends on the frequency they crawl your site. If search engines denies to recrawl your site, we can’t do much.
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Those outdated files go back to 2018 and 2020 and they certainly haven’t been deleted, that’s why search engines still show them in their search results.
If you don’t want them to be indexed, you must remove those files from your media library otherwise they will be appearing in search results.
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I am in my media library now, and I have nothing that comes up with the dates of 2018 or 2020. The site recrawl has been done, but index removal request has been denied with no details.
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I can download an see http://livyos.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/LivyOsMenu.pdf so that file is still online. Idem dito http://www.livyos.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Livy_Os_Catering_Menu_Pricing_Sheet.pdf
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Hello,
Firstly, it seems like they have not been deleted.
Secondly, verify ownership of your website in Google Search Console and submit a removal request for the specific URLs containing the outdated PDFs. This tool allows you to request the removal of specific pages or URLs from Google’s index.
Thirdly since the outdated menu PDFs are associated with specific URLs on your website, you can consider setting up 301 redirects. Create new pages or content with updated information, and redirect the old URLs to the new ones. This way, when users click on the outdated links, they will be automatically redirected to the correct and up-to-date content.
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Is there another section to where these files could be hiding inside/outside of the media library? Or a possibility that there is a glitch in my media library?
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Hi
Try deleting it via FTP. If you do not have access to the FTP, try File Manager plugin. Go to the “wp-content” folder, go inside “uploads” then “2020” then”05″ folder and delete the files “LivyOsMenu.pdf” and “Livy_Os_Catering_Menu_Pricing_Sheet.pdf”
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