How to remove your name from a website, step by step.

A search result is a pointer, not the thing. Google can hide a result from searches for your name — in the EU there is a dedicated form for that — but the page itself stays live, one click away from anyone with a more specific query. Only the site that publishes your data can take it down at the source. That is why the erasure request comes first in this guide: it removes the cause, and a page that no longer exists also drops out of search results on its own.

The two routes are complements, not alternatives. If the site ignores you or has disappeared, the Google form is the fallback that still works.

1. Find who runs the site. Look for a legal notice, “about”, “contact” or “privacy” page — in France sites must publish one. If there is nothing, a whois lookup on the domain names the operator. Write to the privacy or contact address; a form on the site is fine too.
2. Name the exact pages. Paste the full addresses of every page where your name appears. “Remove my information from your site” gets filed under maybe; a list of URLs gets actioned.
3. Say who you are, and no more. Give your name and whatever detail lets them find the entry — the city, the account name, the year. A legitimate site may ask for proof of identity; send only what proves the point, and treat a request for your whole identity file with the suspicion it deserves.
4. Name the right. One honest sentence is enough legal basis. For example: “I am exercising my right to erasure under Article 17 of the GDPR, as this information about me is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was published.” You do not need to argue the law beyond that.
5. State the deadline. Ask for a response within one month, as the GDPR requires. This single line is what turns a polite suggestion into a dated legal request.
6. Send it in writing, and keep the copy. An email is a valid request and it keeps the paper trail for you. For a French site, write in French; for any other language, English usually travels.

That is the whole craft. The request does not need to be long — half a screen of plain sentences outperforms a page of legalese, because the person reading it is usually not a lawyer either.

The clock starts the day the site receives your request. Within one month it must either comply, or give you a reasoned refusal. For a genuinely complex request it can extend by two more months — but it must tell you so within the first month, and the extension is not automatic. Silence past the deadline is a breach in its own right.

Some refusals are legitimate. Journalism, archives, and records a site is legally required to publish are real exceptions under the GDPR, and a personal blog’s author may also have something to say about the balance. A refusal should still explain which exception it is relying on; “we don’t do that” is not an answer.

One more piece of the right worth knowing: when your data has been made public, the site that erases it is also meant to take reasonable steps to inform other sites that copied or linked to it. In practice this rarely happens on its own, which is why a page often needs a request per site.

When a site refuses without a real reason, or simply never answers, you can complain to the CNIL — the French data protection authority. The complaint is free, filed online, and handled in French; you attach your request and the silence or refusal, which is exactly why keeping the paper trail matters. The CNIL handles thousands of these a year and takes the deadline breaches seriously.

For results that keep showing in search after the site is dealt with — or the site is unreachable — the EU de-listing form from the first section is the complement. It hides the result from name searches for people in the EU; the erasure request is what removes the page itself.

One request, one site: do it yourself, tonight, with the six steps above — it costs an email. The economics change with the count. A typical scan of a French name turns up a handful of third-party pages, each needing its own request, its own identity dance, its own follow-up, and its own note in a ledger of who answered and who went quiet at day thirty. That tracking is the actual work — the requests themselves are the easy part.

Our free scan shows your trace count, categories and 1 most exposed item. The full list is in the paid report. If you would rather hand the ledger to someone else, the full report is 29 EUR once, and we draft the Article 17 requests for the pages we can act on, send them in your name, and track every deadline. If it is one directory page, keep the 29 euros and send the email yourself.