How to file a Google delisting request by hand
Google runs several separate removal paths and picking the wrong one is the most common reason a request goes nowhere. Two matter to creators:
- Copyright removal. For material you own or are authorised to act for. Start at Google's legal removal troubleshooter, choose Web Search, then Copyright. Each request takes the infringing URLs, a description of the work, the rights holder's name, and the good-faith and accuracy statements. A single request accepts up to 1,000 URLs.
- Personal explicit imagery removal. For intimate images published without consent. It is a different form, it does not require you to prove you own the copyright, and it usually moves faster. Where both apply, file both.
Two mechanical details cause most rejections. Every entry must be a full page URL, not a domain and not a Google results page. And the description of the work has to describe the work rather than the harm — "photographs I published on my subscription page in March" is usable, "my leaked content" is not.
Google publishes what it removes to a public transparency record, so a request is not a private act. That is normally an advantage: repeat entries against one domain build a visible pattern.
Where filing each Google request by hand stops working
For one batch of URLs the form is fine, and openDMCA publishes the exact text it needs above so that anyone can use it. Three things break the manual method at scale.
Google does not report back per URL. A request is acknowledged as a whole. Whether a specific address actually left the index is something you check yourself, one search at a time, some days later.
Delisting is not removal. A page hidden from Google stays online, stays linkable, and stays visible on Bing. Search delisting is one channel of four, and using it alone leaves the page reachable by anyone with the link.
Re-uploads produce new URLs. A delisted address is delisted forever; the copy that appears next month at a different address is a fresh request. This is the part that turns a one-evening job into a recurring one.
openDMCA files the host notice and the search request as two channels of the same case, then re-checks whether the URL actually left the index rather than assuming it did: how openDMCA handles search delisting end to end.