Sep 23, 2019
Remove outdated content tool not working
I would be very grateful if you can help me solve this problem since as I have read some other users are experiencing the same issue.
Thank you very much in advance
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Sep 26, 2019
Mine is working now - all removals show Removed.
Seems to be fixed. Allow time / day or so / for others to be updated.
Original Poster Pablo González Rubio marked this as an answer
All Replies (10)
Sep 23, 2019
HI
It's doing the same for me - requests from 19 Aug still show pending.
And so I checked one such url that is still in search pages even though the url responds 404 and so gets accepted in the tool.
However when I check if googlebot can actually access the url to see that it is 404, using the MFT, I get the message that googlebot cannot access the site. which is okay if it actually gets a 404
- The page doesn't exist (the test tool received a 404 error).
So . . .I checked that site's robots txt and sure enough, the webmaster has a 500 crawl delay and Disallow everything.
So in that case, the url will remain in search, since that site is blocking all bots to all urls on its site.
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If the url you are trying to remove is on your own site, do an inspection of it per https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289?hl=en
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EDIT
Checked a different url, different site and no robots txt issues. So it seems the MFT is getting the 404.
And since it's been 4 days since that request was made, I sent Feedback via the HELP link top right of that page to send a message to the Search console team.
Last edited Sep 23, 2019
Sep 23, 2019
Let’s see if someone can help users transfer this problem to the appropriate outdated content removal tool department.
Google user
Sep 23, 2019
After 2 days I knew something was wrong so on the 21st I submitted each of the 60 pages individually. Those are still pending and indexed 3 days later.
Never had this process take more than a day or two, some something is definitely wrong.
I have also sent in feedback via the help link. Hopefully, someone actively monitors those.
Google user
Sep 23, 2019
Sep 24, 2019
Sep 24, 2019
Sep 24, 2019
Send feedback in search console
Also be sure you are not mis-using the tool. It is meant for urgent removals only.
The URL removal tool is intended as a first step for content that you urgently need blocked—for example, if it contains confidential data that was accidentally exposed.Using the tool for other purposes might cause problems for your site.
Mine is working now - all removals show Removed.
Seems to be fixed. Allow time / day or so / for others to be updated.
Original Poster Pablo González Rubio marked this as an answer