PDF Showing up in a search engine search

  • Unknown's avatar
    fylgjas · Member ·

    I was removing a blog I created for an online college class, and it seems that my privacy settings for the blog were set to public so that my classmates and professor could see it. One of the assignments was to post a resume in PDF form, scannable copy form, and create a webpage that acted as a resume. Upon the deletion of the blog, i thought that all content linked to the blog web address would be deleted, but the PDF still shows up under the blogs web address. Will this be corrected with time? I would prefer to not have my resume just hanging out there when it is supposed to be gone since the website was removed.

  • Unknown's avatar
    otpidusprime · Member ·

    Hi there,
    You can delete all your uploaded files from the Media Library.

    When you click on the link you will be directed to the Media Library page of your account.

    By default, it will show All the files that you have uploaded during the development of the site-so to click the PDF document you are specifying, go to the Documents tab, find you PDF file, click on it to select and then click on the red delete(trash icon) button that will appear on the top bar.

    You can also access you Media Library from My Site > Media.

    Read more about deleting files here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/media/deleting-files/

    Hope this helps :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    dave2swords · Member ·

    Hi there!

    @otpidusprime     if i may….
    You specifically mentioned seeing the .PDF after deleting the blog, IF you deleted all the files as per otpidusprime’s answer, it is very possible that the file is in an archived copy. You did not mention where you saw the copy.

    You could try clearing your browser’s cache and see if that’s where it is.

    Places like the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) have saved my bacon a few times after i did a global thermonuclear delete on pages i wrote and needed some or all of it back later on! Your file will show in a search if it was archived in such a place.

    best,
    dave

  • Unknown's avatar
    otpidusprime · Member ·

    it is very possible that the file is in an archived copy. You did not mention where you saw the copy.

    @fylgjas, as @dave2swords said
    Yes it is very much possible that you might be viewing results from a cached version, as the media library is not accessible after deleting the site so i am assuming the files are deleted too once the site is deleted.

    As this support doc says:
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/media/deleting-files/#additional-info

    the direct web addresses to the files might continue to work for up to a few days, as they are cached.

    So try clearing you browser’s cache as suggested by @dave2swords and see if the file is still accessible.

  • Unknown's avatar
    justjennifer · Member ·

    You don’t say how long ago you deleted your site, but deleting a WordPressdotcom site does not immediately remove it from search engine returns. You’ll need to wait until the search bot crawls your site again to see that it’s been deleted (3-6 months) and WordPressdotcom has no control over how long that takes. If you can’t wait for that to happen then you’ll need to contact each search engine and request your URL be removed. https://en.support.wordpress.com/search-engines/

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