By: Tyler

You spend months, maybe even years trying to get onto the front page of Google or Yahoo so people can find you. Now both search engines are to a point where new content is indexed relatively quickly, especially if you have already gained a positive reputation with their algorithms. So what is the downfall of being well indexed in the search engines?

Publishing pages that you, or worse your members, don’t want to be found.

I have noticed two instances of this occurring. Either you publish content that needs to be removed due to writing something controversial (when you’re not trying to be) or just being inaccurate. Or, members search their name, find their profile and want it deleted. The latter is what I have to deal with on a daily basis. Unfortunately members don’t understand that websites don’t have control over how long Google or Yahoo cache web pages.

How do you correct a cache issue?

Google provides a tag that you can place at the head of the page that will prevent the page from being shown in the SERPS. The second option is not to build a system that incorporates pages that people want taken down.

You might laugh, but these are users who created their own profile, not auto generated. Can you imagine the issues that LinkedIn and Facebook deal with??? If you browse through LinkedIn Answers, you will find users asking for their profiles to be removed as if they had no idea how all their information got on the site.

I just needed to vent.