How to Bury Google Search Results (A Step-by-Step Guide)

Anyone can publish anything online. Mugshot sites, anonymous posts, old news articles, and user-generated content can follow you for years.

When four or more negative results appear on page one, research suggests you can lose up to 70% of potential customers before they ever contact you. If something unwanted shows up when someone searches your name or business, you are not alone and you are not powerless.

But here is the honest starting point: you do not delete Google search results. You replace them. This guide explains how burying negative search results actually works, what you can do yourself, what is worth outsourcing, and the details most people miss.

What “Burying” a Search Result Actually Means

When someone says they want to bury a result, they usually mean one or more of these goals:

• Push a negative page off page one
• Reduce how often people see or click it
• Make stronger, accurate content show up above it
• Change the narrative when someone searches for your name or brand

You rarely erase the past. You outcompete it. The people who make real progress accept this early. The ones who stay stuck keep hoping for a delete button that does not exist.

A Real Example: KFC and the Chicken Crisis

In 2018, KFC ran out of chicken across hundreds of UK locations. Headlines filled with “KFC runs out of chicken,” “stores closed nationwide,” and “customers furious.” KFC did not hide or deny it. They leaned in.

Their now-famous “FCK” apology ad acknowledged the mistake directly, used humor, and showed genuine accountability. What happened next: public sentiment improved, media coverage shifted in tone, and the narrative changed from outrage to a mix of respect and amusement. They did not erase the problem. They reframed the story. That is exactly what this process looks like in practice.

The Three Levers of Reputation Recovery

Every successful reputation project relies on three levers, and the strongest recoveries use all three where they make sense.

Lever	What It Means	When It Applies
Removal	Getting content taken down or de-indexed where possible	Privacy violations, copyright, defamation, policy breaches
Suppression	Pushing negative results down with stronger, more relevant content	True or factual content that cannot be removed
Reframing	Changing the context and story around what happened	Outdated narrative, one-sided coverage, old incidents

The first question is always: can we remove or limit this at the source? If the answer is no, the focus shifts to outcompeting and reframing the result over time.

Start With a Clear Picture of Your Current Search Results

Before you fix anything, you need to understand what Google shows today. Open an incognito browser window and search your full name, your name plus your city, your business name, and your name combined with terms like “reviews,” “complaints,” “scam,” or “lawsuit.”

For each result on pages one and two, note the URL, the site name, the type of page (profile, article, review, video, directory), and whether the tone is positive, neutral, or negative. This inventory becomes your checklist. Without it you end up working in the dark, often pushing on the wrong places.

Look for patterns: is the problem one big article, or many small mentions? Do certain search terms (like “scam” or “lawsuit”) pull up worse results than your name alone? Are the negative pieces very recent, or many years old? The answers shape which lever to pull first.

When Removal Is Actually Possible

Some content can be removed from the web or de-indexed from Google if it breaks rules or laws. Common situations where removal is achievable include:

• Privacy violations such as your home address, phone number, or financial data published without consent
• Non-consensual intimate images, which most platforms remove rapidly under dedicated policies
• Copyright violations where your original text, photos, or videos were used without permission
• Defamation, meaning false statements presented as fact that damage your reputation, though this usually requires legal documentation
• Policy violations on specific platforms, such as fake reviews or targeted harassment

Step 1: Contact the Website Owner

Your first and often fastest option is to contact the site hosting the content. Find a contact email or form on the site and send a short, calm message that identifies the exact page, explains why the content should be removed (privacy, inaccuracy, resolved issue, or clear policy violation), and includes any supporting documentation you have. Keep records of what you send and any replies you receive.

Step 2: Contact the Hosting Provider

If the site owner does not respond and the content is clearly abusive or illegal, look up the hosting company using a WHOIS lookup tool and contact them directly. Include the URL, a clear explanation of how it violates their terms of service, and any legal documents you have. This works best for content that is undeniably violating platform rules.

Step 3: File a DMCA Takedown for Copyright Violations

If someone copied your original words, photos, or videos without permission, you can file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown request with the website or directly with Google to remove that specific page from search results. Our full guide on filing a DMCA complaint walks through the process for every major platform.

Step 4: Use Google’s Removal Tools

Google will remove or limit certain results containing sensitive personal information, doxxing content, non-consensual intimate images, or content that violates their specific policies. You can submit a removal request directly through Google’s content removal tool. Fill it out honestly, provide links and screenshots, and explain clearly which policy applies. Our guide on removing content from Google Search covers the full process.

Right to Be Forgotten (EU and UK Only)

In the European Union and United Kingdom, people can request that certain search results be removed when they are inaccurate, no longer relevant, or excessive compared to the public interest. This applies only to Google results in those regions. The original article may still live on the publisher’s site even after a successful removal request.

When Removal Fails: Suppression and Reframing

There are many situations where removal is not realistic: true and factual news reports, public court records, honest user-generated reviews, and accurate historical coverage. In these cases, your main tools become suppression and reframing.

Think of page one as limited shelf space. There is less room for old or bad content when you fill each position with accurate, credible content about you. The goal is to create pages that are more relevant, more trusted, and more useful to someone searching your name than the negative result is, so Google ranks yours above it.

This means you stop looking for tricks and start building a better online presence, consistently, over time.

The Core Suppression Steps

Step 1: Create a Website in Your Name

Your website is your home base. Every other online property should link back to it. Register yourname.com or yourbusiness.com if available. If taken, use a clean variation like yournameonline.com or yourname-city.com.

At minimum, create a Home page, an About page, a Services or Work page, and a Contact page. On every page, use your full name or business name naturally in headings and the first paragraph. Mention your city or region if local search matters to you. A professional headshot or logo on every page helps Google associate the content with a real person or business.

Step 2: Build and Optimize Professional Profiles

Profiles on trusted platforms rank quickly and often take multiple spots on page one. Start with LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube. Then move to authority profile sites like About.me and Crunchbase, plus any industry-specific directories that apply to your field.

For every profile: use a vanity URL with your name, fill out every field completely, link back to your main website, and keep your headshot and bio consistent across all of them. Real activity such as posts and updates helps profiles rank higher and signals to Google that the account is active.

Step 3: Target Your Name Plus Location Keywords

When people research you, they rarely search just your name. They use patterns like your name plus your city, your name plus your company, or your name plus “reviews.” A negative article may be optimized around exactly these phrases. Your goal is to own the neutral or positive versions of those combinations by including them naturally in your website title, LinkedIn headline, social profile URLs, and bios across all your properties.

Step 4: Link Everything Together

Google is very good at recognizing patterns. On your website, link out to your main profiles. On each profile, link back to your website as the home URL, and where possible link to other important profiles. This cross-linking confirms that all these properties belong to the same person, passes authority from established platforms back to your site, and helps Google treat your website as the central, current source of information about you.

Step 5: Publish on Trusted Third-Party Platforms

Publishing articles under your name on platforms Google already trusts creates new pages that can rank for your name and shows that you are active today, not just a snapshot from years ago. Medium, Substack, Blogger, and industry-specific publications all work well. Write about topics that match what people genuinely want to know about you: who you are now, what you do, common questions in your field, and lessons from your work.

Step 6: Create Video Content

Video is one of the most powerful tools in reputation management because of how it shows up in search. When you search a name or brand, Google often displays a video carousel near the top of page one, taking up significant visual space. If you do not create videos, someone else eventually will. If you do, you get a chance to own that carousel.

Create a YouTube channel under your name or business name, fill out all channel details, and start with simple, clear videos: an introduction, answers to common questions, or quick expertise demonstrations. Use your name and key topics in the title and description of each video, and embed them on your website.

Step 7: Optimize Your Site Structure for Sitelinks

When Google can easily crawl your website, it sometimes displays sitelinks below your main result, meaning your one result may occupy two or three lines on page one. If you are on WordPress, install Yoast SEO or Rank Math, turn on the sitemap feature, and submit it through Google Search Console. Link clearly between your main pages with descriptive anchor text so Google can navigate the site easily.

Step 8: Build a Review Presence

Review profiles rank extremely well and are often the top results for business name searches. Create profiles on Trustpilot, Google Business Profile, or industry-relevant review platforms, and ask satisfied clients or colleagues to leave honest reviews. Respond to all reviews, positive and negative, professionally. How you respond is as visible to potential customers as the review itself.

Step 9: Use Google Ads as a Temporary Bridge

Google Ads will not fix your reputation by themselves, but they give you short-term control. Run ads using your name and core brand keywords, pointed at a strong, positive page. Ads appear above all organic results, pushing negative stories further down while your suppression content builds authority. Target only your main name and brand keywords to keep costs focused. Treat ads as a bridge, not a permanent solution. When you stop paying, the ads disappear and organic results return to their natural positions.

Timeline and Realistic Expectations

Most people underestimate how long this takes. They try one or two tactics for a month, do not see dramatic results, and stop. Meanwhile the negative content keeps aging and accumulating clicks, which signals to Google that it remains relevant.

Period	What to Expect
Months 1 to 2	New properties get indexed. Small shifts in rankings begin.
Months 3 to 6	Your properties start stacking on page one. Negative results drop spots.
Months 6 to 12	New narrative becomes stable. Old results move to page two.
Ongoing	Regular updates and monitoring prevent regression.

Real suppression requires a clear plan, steady content creation, regular profile updates, and ongoing monitoring of search results. The clients who see results are not the ones with the perfect first move. They are the ones who keep going.

Pay attention to two metrics over time: rankings (which pages appear where) and sentiment (what language is used across results, reviews, and comments). You need both moving in the right direction for a true recovery.

When to Get Professional Help

There is a lot you can do on your own: claim profiles, launch a basic website, write a few key articles, ask for honest reviews. For mild situations, this is often enough to shift what people see.

DIY usually hits a wall when a negative result lives on a major news site, government database, or large review platform, when several different sites are telling the same negative story, or when there is an active, ongoing conversation about you or your brand that keeps generating new content.

At that point, posting more content without a strategy rarely makes an impact. Professional reputation management involves analyzing the full search ecosystem around your name, not just page one. This means understanding how different results link and refer to each other, which keywords trigger the worst results, how sentiment shifts across news, social, reviews, and forums, and what it would realistically take to outrank or balance each piece.

A Simple Plan to Start With

If this feels overwhelming, start here. You do not have to do everything at once.

1. Map your results. Inventory pages one and two for your name. Flag the results that are genuinely harmful, not just mildly unflattering.
2. Pursue removal where it is justified. Privacy violations, copyright infringement, and clear policy violations are worth pursuing first.
3. Secure your main properties. Register your domain, complete your LinkedIn profile, and claim your key social and industry profiles.
4. Connect everything. Link your site and profiles to each other so Google sees the pattern.
5. Publish consistently. Aim for one to two meaningful pieces of content per month, whether articles, videos, or both.
6. Repair your review presence. Claim review profiles, request honest reviews from satisfied customers, and respond professionally to all of them.
7. Monitor monthly. Search your name in incognito mode at least once a month and track shifts in rankings and sentiment.
8. Ask for help when needed. If results are not moving after six months of consistent effort, a professional campaign can accelerate progress significantly.

You cannot fully control what the internet remembers. But you can influence what it shows first. The real question is: what do you want people to see when they search your name, and what steps are you prepared to take consistently to make that the reality?

If you want to understand exactly where you stand and what it will take to change it, contact the NewReputation team for a free consultation.