Can we use URL pattern in google remove URL webmaster?

Question

I am working on a project which has some private information. They are indexed in google and is showing as a snippet. Now I want to remove those URL from google index. I have gone through the google webmaster tool and followed instruction given to remove url

Following is the URL I want to remove :

- https://www.example.com/cars/first-car
- https://www.example.com/brands/first-brand/computers/first-computer/

Above are dynamic URLs.

Following is what I have entered for removal : (Google is showing removed in webmaster)

- https://www.example.com/cars
- https://www.example.com/brands

What I believe is it should remove all the URLs which have root /cars and /brands from Google about my website.

But it is still showing in the Google index.

I want to know that if I enter following :

- https://www.example.com/cars/*
- https://www.example.com/brands/*

Will that work? if not what I should enter to remove all that URLs and snippet to prevent showing on google? Your help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

As mentioned in document you linked to, if you want to hide the URL and all subpages, ie. the entire directory, then you need to select "Temporarily hide directory" when submitting URLs of the form:

• https://www.example.com/cars
• https://www.example.com/brands

As far as I know, wildcards are not supported.

Whilst /cars and /brands may not be physical directories on disk, they behave like directories in the URL. Really, they are whole path segments.

5. If not hiding the entire site, you'll be asked to choose one of the following actions:

   • Temporarily hide page from search results and remove from cache: Hides the page from Google search results for about 90 days, and also clears the cached copy of the page and snippet. The page can reappear in search results after the blackout period. Google will recrawl the page during the blackout period and refresh the page cache and snippet, but will not show them until the blackout period expires.

   • Remove page from cache only: Clears the cached page and snippet, but does not remove the page from search results. Google will refresh the page cache and snippet.

   • Temporarily hide directory: Hides an entire directory from search results for about 90 days and also clears cached pages and snippets for all pages in the specified directory. The directory can reappear in search results after the blackout period. Google will recrawl the pages during the blackout period and refresh the page caches and snippets.