Google is not the source of your exposure — the data brokers publishing your address are — but Google is where people find it. Since 2026 Google gives you two genuinely useful free tools plus one cleanup tool, and knowing which to use when saves weeks. This guide covers all three, verified against Google’s own documentation on the date above, and is honest about the part Google will not fix.
Tool 1: Results About You — the standing monitor
The Results About You tool is the one to set up first. You add the personal details you care about once, and Google continuously monitors Search and notifies you — by email or app notification — when a result exposing them appears, with a removal request one click away.
What it watches for, as of February 2026:
- Phone number, home address, email address (the original scope)
- Government ID numbers — Social Security numbers, passport numbers, driver’s license numbers (added February 2026, US-first; Google says submitted ID data is encrypted)
Practical notes: it requires a Google account, it is limited to users 18+ in supported
markets, matching results typically surface within a few hours of setup, and Google reports
over 10 million people already use it. Set it up before you start any broker cleanup — it
becomes your free early-warning system for reappearing listings, alongside our own
Exposure Check.
Tool 2: the removal request form — the one-off strike
For a specific search result exposing information you never enrolled in monitoring, file directly at Google’s content removal form (the consolidated form that replaced the old troubleshooters). Under Google’s personal-information policy, removal requests qualify for:
- Contact details: home address, phone number, email address
- Government IDs: SSN or tax ID, resident IDs
- Bank account and credit card numbers
- Images of your signature or ID documents
- Medical records and confidential login credentials
- Content posted with doxxing intent, non-consensual explicit images, and content about minors
What does not qualify is the important part: content Google deems newsworthy, professionally relevant, or in the public interest — explicitly including information appearing in public records and government sources. Google publishes no turnaround SLA for these requests; you get an email when a decision is made.
Tool 3: Refresh Outdated Content — the after-cleanup broom
When a page has already been deleted or changed but Google still shows the stale result — the
classic case being a data-broker listing you successfully removed that still haunts your name
search — use the
Refresh Outdated Content tool.
Anyone can file it, not just site owners, and it works for pages and images. This is the tool
to run about two weeks after finishing a round of broker opt-outs, when search
caches are the last thing keeping your address visible; several brokers’ removed listings
linger in caches for up to 2 weeks.
The part Google won’t fix
Google’s help page says it plainly: “Even if Google removes something from Google Search, it might still be on the internet. People might still find it through links, social media, or other search engines.” Removing a search result hides the door; the room is still there. The broker page keeps existing, keeps feeding other search engines, and keeps getting re-crawled.
And the public-records carve-out means Google generally will not suppress people-search listings at all — they are built from public records, which is precisely the category Google retains. That is why the durable order of operations is:
- Remove the listings at the source — the brokers. Our 18 step-by-step guides are free, or Sentinel files everything for you with receipts.
- Set up Results About You so Google alerts you when something new surfaces.
- Run the outdated-content tool on anything that lingers after step 1.
- Repeat quarterly — brokers re-list, caches refresh, and monitoring catches what returns. California residents can add the single biggest lever on top: one DROP request covering 600+ registered brokers.
Sources: Google’s Results About You help page (support.google.com/websearch/answer/12719076), personal-information removal policy (answer/9673730), removal-options page (answer/2744324), outdated-content help (answer/6349986), and Google’s February 2026 product announcement on government-ID monitoring. All accessed 2026-07-07.