Report copyright infringement to Google
Google can take a page out of its search results. It cannot take the page off the website it lives on. Understanding that distinction is the difference between a useful filing and a disappointing one.
What de-indexing does and does not do
A successful request removes the specified URLs from Google Search results. The page stays exactly where it is, served by its host, reachable by anyone with the link, and still visible in other search engines.
That sounds like a half-measure, and sometimes it is. But for a scraper site or a thin copy whose entire value is search traffic, removing the traffic is functionally removing the page. For a competitor’s storefront that gets its visitors from ads and social, de-indexing barely registers.
A scraped copy outranking your original
Yes. This is the case it is built for.
Stopping a competitor using your copy
Barely. The page keeps working for them.
Removing the content from the internet
No. Host notice, separately.
Stopping it appearing when someone searches your brand
Yes, in Google specifically.
File it as well as, not instead of, the host notice
These are two recipients and two decisions. The host can remove the page. Google can remove the listing. Neither forwards to the other, and a host notice that succeeds will usually cause the search listing to drop out naturally once the page is gone — but that can take time, and the de-index is immediate once granted.
The sensible order is to file both at once when the content is both infringing and ranking. Where our ladder prices a multi-channel case one rung higher, this is what it is paying for: the same evidence, prepared twice, for two different recipients with two different formats.
What gets published about you
This is the part people are not told before they file, and it genuinely changes some decisions.
Google sends copies of the removal requests it receives to the Lumen database, which publishes them. What is published includes the requester’s name, the rights holder’s name, the reported URLs and the explanation given. Contact-information fields are withheld.
So a competitor can find out that you filed, what you claimed, and which URLs you reported. For most businesses that is a non-issue. For some, it is a reason to file through an agent, so that the agent’s name appears as the requester, and a reason to think about which rights-holder name you use.
We tell you this before you authorise anything
Getting a request accepted
Google reviews requests and does reject them. The common reasons are not mysterious.
- The URLs are not specific. A domain is not a URL and will not be processed.
- The claim is really about trademark, defamation, or a bad review. Each has its own, different process.
- The reported page is plainly commentary, criticism or news, where fair use is a live argument.
- The request fails to identify the original work, so there is nothing to compare against.
- One request mixes several Google products. Search, Images, Blogger and YouTube are separate processes.
The underlying discipline is the same as any notice: be specific, be checkable, and claim only what copyright actually covers. Our fair-use check is a good last step before filing anything that touches commentary.
Writing a request that gets granted
The form is short and the reviewer is fast, so everything turns on how specific you are. Three fields do the work.
- The original work
- A URL on your own site where the content is published, not a description of it. The reviewer will open it and compare.
- The infringing URLs
- One per line, exact. A domain is not a URL and a request listing one will not be processed. If a site has fifty copies, list fifty URLs.
- The description
- One or two sentences stating what matches. “The text at these URLs reproduces our page verbatim” is better than a paragraph of context, and it is the field that gets published to Lumen.
Keep the claim within copyright. Google will not de-index a page because it uses your brand name, because a review is unfair, or because a competitor is outranking you. Each of those has a different process or no process at all, and mixing them in weakens the part of the request that was sound.
When de-indexing is the wrong tool
It is a narrow instrument and it is frequently reached for in situations it cannot help.
- You want the content gone. De-indexing does not touch the page. File with the host.
- The page ranks for your brand but is not infringing. Nothing in copyright applies. This is a reputation problem, not a rights problem.
- It is a bad review of you. Different law entirely, and attempting copyright here is the clearest possible misuse.
- You control the page. Use noindex or Search Console removals, which are immediate and need no claim.
- The copy is not ranking. Then de-indexing changes nothing commercially, and the host notice is the whole job.
Where it earns its place is narrow but real: a scraped copy that is outranking your original, or a copy whose entire value to its owner is organic search traffic. In those cases the de-index does more practical damage than the host notice does.
Last reviewed October 23, 2026. This is general information about a US statute, not legal advice, and we are not a law firm.
What people ask next
Will Google tell the site owner?
In effect, yes. Google notifies site owners through Search Console where it can, and the request itself is published to the Lumen database with the requester and rights-holder names and the reported URLs.
How long does a request take?
There is no published figure and we will not guess one. Copyright removal requests are reviewed by people, volumes are very large, and the answer varies.
Can I de-index my own content?
If you control the page, you do not need a copyright request at all — noindex, robots.txt or Search Console removal tools handle it directly, and they are faster.
Does this work for Bing too?
Bing has its own process, as does every major search engine. A Google request only affects Google. For most US businesses Google is the one that matters commercially, which is why it is usually the only one worth the paperwork.
What if the page is removed later — does the de-index reverse?
If the host removes the page, it drops out of the index anyway. The de-index does not need undoing. If the page comes back after a counter-notice, the search listing can return too.
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