Google problem

superscaper

A friend of the family has found a reference to her in a google search that she doesn't want there, it's damaging to her reputation. The original webpage doesn't exist and the reference in the google index starts %20www. so it's not even a valid url and so it hasn't been updated and I don't think it can be. Is there anything I can do about it? I've tried contacting google but the only response I ever got was a bog standard google updates it's pages blah blah and they obviously didn't read the actual problem that it is not a url syntax so can't be updated. We first noticed it six months ago and it's still there.

spook

Try entering the url in a google search preceded by link:

e.g. link:https://www.yahoo.com

- it's possible the page is still being linked to from somewhere else on the internet, which is why Google haven't removed it from their index. Maybe getting the link removed will speed up its removal from Google.

I'm assuming you've tried using the automatic URL removal tool with no success?

superscaper

spook wrote:

Try entering the url in a google search preceded by link:

e.g. link:https://www.yahoo.com

- it's possible the page is still being linked to from somewhere else on the internet, which is why Google haven't removed it from their index. Maybe getting the link removed will speed up its removal from Google.

I'm assuming you've tried using the automatic URL removal tool with no success?

The proper URL was taken off the index I presume after being updated but the "fake" one hasn't. Putting it in removal tool just says it's not a real URL, if I put in the real version of the URL I don't think makes a difference because that was on the index separately and has disappeared ages ago.

superscaper

I've checked again if there are any links to the site and there's nothing listed for either the incorrect %20www. or the https://www.. I just don't see how it was even possible for an incorrect syntax url to be listed in the first place.

audirob

I would try spybot search and distroy,
Spyware me thinks

albertross_2

it should drop out of the google cache at some point in the future, when the spider has crawled the web.

superscaper

audirob wrote:

I would try spybot search and distroy,
Spyware me thinks

Nothing to do with my computer, it appears in search results no matter which computer I or anybody else uses.

superscaper

albertross wrote:

it should drop out of the google cache at some point in the future, when the spider has crawled the web.

That's what happened with the genuine URL but this isn't a genuine URL so it doesn't look like it's updating, as I said it's already been there several months that we've noticed and I still don't understand how a URL with a space character could get onto the index in the first place. According to Google's help pages, links are deleted if they resolve to a genuine 404 error, since the URL isn't even a proper URL syntax it never even gets to show a 404 error.

kevin.philips

Have you tried typing the web address withouth the %20 - as this only signifies a space charachter in the URLencoding string....?

superscaper

kevin.philips wrote:

Have you tried typing the web address withouth the %20 - as this only signifies a space charachter in the URLencoding string....?

I know, the address does exist but contains different information now and was listed as another entry on the search results. The proper address has disappeared from the search results as should happen with updated index but since the %20www. version is a separate entry it has stayed on. I realised it was a space character which is usually an indication of a typo, but I'm not sure how there can be a typo in a URL that's meant to be harvested automatically.