Remove URL Tool

What exactly is the deal with the Google “Remove your URL” tool?
When I use this tool to remove a page from my site either by directly typing in the URL or using the robots.txt file, the page is reported being removed out of the index within 3-5 days. Despite this, the page is still showing in the Google index and also in the Google sitemap webmaster tools as “page not found” error or “restricted by robots.txt”.
I removed pages nearly a year ago and they are still not removed. I just wonder if this tool serves any purpose at all or am I misunderstanding the purpose of this tool?

 

I believe the page is removed from general SERPs and will still show with the site: command.

 

Where do the results come from when using the site: command if not from the SERP’s?

 

It sometimes takes a year or more for google to drop a site when you use the url removal tool. It will show up with the site command but it recieves less and less organic traffic until it eventually gets none and is removed.

There is no quick way to get a page removed

 

To remove a page just 301 it to another page.

 

Yes, I know about that one but about a year ago I moved my health directory which is part of my main website to a different directory which contained over 60K pages – an impossible task to setup a 301 for every page.

 

Not really. You just use regular expressions in htaccess or something.

One things for sure - deleting 60,000 pages is going to hurt your site more than anything else you can ever do.

 

Yes I know, but when I setup this directory originally I imported part of the DOMOZ directory. Getting some advice from SEO experts here on the forum I was told I get penalized for adding too many new pages to my site. As` a result I took the directory off completely. A few months later I decided to put it back on and ended up having it in a new subdirectory on my site.
The site did not decline in rankings for any of my keywords.

 

But having 60,000 pages showing 404 errors is not going to help matters. To anybody else reading the thread the best thing is to just 301 all pages you don't want anymore to either the homepage or the new page.

You won't get a penalty for adding new pages too fast but if those pages suddenly start all showing 404 errors then you may lose trust. Search engines don't want to send people to sites with lots of 404 errors.

 

Wouldn’t redirecting many URL’s to one page result in duplicate content or is this not the case with redirects?
Thanks

 

If you redirect a page then it ceases to exist so you will not get duplicate content.

 

301 does not remove a page but since he explained specifically why he wanted to remove the url then the 301 is the best choice.

 

That makes sense - learned something new again.
Thank you very much guys for the help and a happy New Year from New Zealand!
It's now 7.30am on the first of January 2007 over here. We are a bit ahead to the rest of the world - a fact we a re quite proud of.