Remove URLs from Google cache, search results not updated after URL removal in Google Search Console

Question

I used URL removal tool provided by Google Webmaster Tools. I provided the site address to update the cache which has almost 4000 URLs. The website cache in the Google search results is still not updated.

The link is findprivateschools.co.za/collegedetail/AndTheIntendedUrls which needs to be updated in the cache. The url removal tools specified that cache removal is successful but the search results in google is not updated.

Also the title tag is not updated. I used site:findprivateschools.co.za to see all my site results. Do I have to manually submit all 4000 URLs through Google Search Console for cache removal?

Answer 1

As far as I can tell, those pages are still available on your site. Google won't remove URLs from its index and cache while they are still working, crawlable, and indexable. To get the cache removed you need to do one of the following:

• Remove the pages and return "404 Not Found" or "410 Gone" status
• Disallow them in robots.txt with a line like Disallow: /collegedetail/ (This will prevent Google from crawling them further, but may not remove all of them from the index.)
• Prevent Google from indexing them with robots meta tag: <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
• Prevent Google from caching them with robots meta tag: <meta name="robots" content="noarchive">

Once you have done one of those, Google will remove the pages and cache next time it crawls. It may take a month or more for Google to get through all of them. You can speed up the process by using the removal tool with URLs one at a time.

Answer 2

Definitely take note of Stephen's advice there.

Remember too, that the URL removal tool in Google Search Console is only temporary, and that in 90 days (IIRC) the urls will return unless you've been able to carry out one of the steps that Stephen mentioned.

I usually wield that noarchive tag, or if the pages are no longer needed, opt for the 404/410 option.