How to Use Google's "Results About You" Tool to Remove Your Contact Info
Results about you is a free Google tool that scans Search for pages showing your phone number, home address or email address, notifies you when it finds them, and lets you ask Google to drop those pages from its results. You set it up once with the details you want watched, then review matches as they come in.
It does not delete anything from the website itself. It only changes what Google Search shows. That distinction matters, and it comes up again below.
What the tool watches for
According to Google's help page for the feature, you can enter these details for monitoring:
Google says some of these features are still rolling out to users over 18 in certain markets, so your screen may not show every field. If the person in the results is under 18, Google points you to its detailed removal request form instead.
- Your name, plus a nickname or maiden name if people know you by one
- One or more personal phone numbers
- One or more home addresses, including old ones that still circulate
- One or more personal email addresses
- Your Social Security number, passport number or driver's license number
Setting it up
You need to be signed in to a Google Account. There are two ways in:
Enter your details
Select Get started (or Settings if you have used it before). Enter your name and each piece of contact info you want Google to look for. Add every variation that actually appears online: the landline you gave up years ago, the apartment you rented in college, the email address from an old job. The tool can only match what you give it.
Next, turn on notifications. You can get them by email and in the Google app. Google says you will hear back within a few hours about whether anything matched, and then again whenever new matching results appear.
- Google app: tap your profile picture or initial to open the menu, then choose Results about you.
- Browser, phone or desktop: go straight to myactivity.google.com/results-about-you.
Reviewing what it finds
Matches land in the To review tab. Select a result to see which site it comes from and which of your details it contains. For each one you have two choices:
Go through them one at a time. People-search sites often publish the same record on several URLs, so you may see a cluster from one domain. Each URL is a separate request.
- Request to remove if you want it out of Search.
- Mark as reviewed if it's harmless, such as your own professional profile, and you want it off your list.
Requesting removal from the search page itself
You don't have to wait for the tool to find a result. If you come across one while searching your own name, you can report it directly:
One detail from Google's instructions trips people up: enter your contact info exactly as it appears on the page. If the page shows an old address, enter the old address. If it shows a nickname, use the nickname. You only need to include one type of contact info per URL, and you don't need multiple requests for the same page.
- Search your name, or your name plus your city or street, which tends to surface people-search listings.
- Next to the result, click the three-dot More icon to open the About this result panel.
- Select Remove result, then It shows my personal info and I don't want it there, then Contact Info.
- Follow the prompts, submit, then select I'm done.
Tracking your requests
Google emails you to confirm each submission. In Results about you, the Removal requests section shows every request with one of four statuses: In progress, Approved, Denied or Undone. Opening a request shows the flagged link, when you submitted it, a request ID, and the contact info you reported.
Approval and disappearance are not simultaneous. Google notes there can be a delay between approval and the result actually leaving Search. If a request is denied, the reason is listed on the same page.
What "approved" actually gets you
Google describes two outcomes for approved URLs. Most of the time the page stops appearing for any search. Sometimes it only stops appearing for searches that include your name. Google calls this query-based removal, and uses it when the page also holds information of public value or information about other people.
Either way, the page is still live. Anyone with the link, anyone searching on Bing or DuckDuckGo, and anyone browsing the site directly can still see it. To get it off the web, you have to go to the site. Many people-search sites offer an opt-out, and our guide to personal information removal covers how those typically work.
When there's no remove button
Google won't remove contact info from pages it considers valuable to the public. Its help page names government and educational sites, newspapers and business websites. On those results you simply won't see a remove option. Requests also get denied when:
If a result falls into one of these gaps, removal from Google usually isn't realistic. The practical options are asking the site owner directly, or pushing stronger, accurate results above it over time. Our overview of what Google removes for free lays out which categories go where.
- The contact info isn't your personal info. Professional details posted to harm you go through the detailed removal form instead.
- You control the page yourself, like your own social profile or blog. Google expects you to edit it.
- You submit on behalf of someone else from your own account. Google says those may be denied; use the detailed form instead.
A few practical notes
- Keep monitoring on. People-search sites republish data from brokers, so the same listing can come back under a new URL. Notifications catch that.
- Undo is possible. If you change your mind, select Undo on a request. Google cautions that the page still may not reappear if someone else also had it removed.
- Paywalled pages count. You can request removal of a result that leads to a paywall.
- You can clear your data. To stop monitoring and delete the details you entered, go to Settings and select Remove all personal info.
When outside help makes sense
For most people, Results about you plus a handful of site opt-outs handles the problem, and it costs nothing. It gets harder when the same data keeps reappearing across dozens of broker sites, when the page is a news article or court record Google won't touch, or when contact details are being posted to harass you. In those cases it can help to have someone track the sources and follow up for you. If that's where you are, you can see how we approach it on our personal info removal page.
