When I post a classified ad and then search the relevant keywords through Google to find out if the ad shows up, I find that it does. However, if I delete the classified ad, the search result (obviously) still shows the same search result. But on clicking the searched page, I see a message posted by the Classified ad administrator that "This ad no longer exists". Upto this point it is logical. My question is how to delete the searched result if I have deleted the ad inside. I do not want people to anxiously attempt visiting the classified ad site and see a message as above. Is there any way out?
Yes there is. Giving a 404 error response will cause the page to eventually be removed, but if you need it removed ASAP, you simply need to sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and then under crawler access there's a spot to remove URL's from search engines.
Only ad contents belong to me which have been removed. Classified ad site's URL is not mine. Can I still delete it from Searched pages? Can you clarify a little bit more? Can you elaborate on 404 method?
chiplonkar, Do you use webmaster tool to keep track how your website is performing? Webmaster tool is basically made for the webmaster (site owners) where they can see website's trend in search results, whether your site is infected or hacked, which keyword sent you maximum traffic, which regions traffic is coming from mostly etc etc... What you can do is, go to your webmaster tool, click crawler and then remove URL, copy the url and add it for removal. After few hours, google will remove that URL from search results. That's it
Softtech02, he doesn't actually own the website from what I can understand. So... chiplonkar, if that's the case then you might be out of luck. Only the webmaster of the site can login to Google Webmaster Tools. However, you could try contacting the webmaster of that classifieds site to try and get them to remove it using the webmaster tools. If all else fails then you may just have to wait it out. 404 is the HTTP status code for "Page not found". Every time you access a webpage you get a three digit status code. I think for you successfully being able to view any webpage (like this webpage for example), you would get an HTTP status code of 200. Search Engines will eventually remove pages from their index if they have a 404 status because they're not relevant to anybody anymore if the webpage doesn't exist. You can learn more about HTTP status codes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes And for finding a webmaster of the website(or classified ads site in your case), then you can go here and do a WHOIS lookup on the domain: http://www.who.is/
I Thank both of you for the answers. I think my problem is obviously not related to 404 or "page not found" error. Because, the classified ad site is found in the search. It is only my ad which is not present inside the page shown by google. As suggested by you, I have written to the administrator of the Classified Ad site. But I guess he will not do any thing to remove the URL because, his advertisement of classified ads site is any way being shown. Why should he bother whether a particular classified ad is displayed or not? Most of the classified ads site have ads active only for a limited time like 30 days or 60 days. So this problem must be common to many ads which are getting deleted automatically. Any way thanks for the inputs.
Sites can still be found even if they're found in the search and even if there is a webpage. Website owners can also setup their site to have custom 404 pages using .htaccess. So every time a webpage that doesn't exist on their site is accessed it may generate some generic page that is a part of their website. But anyways, it all depends on how they have the site setup so it might not be a 404 page like you were saying. Either way you wont be able to do anything as you're not the webmaster of that site. Another thing I never mentioned was that even if it wasn't a 404, but they removed your ad from their system and it no longer shows that ad content on the page (the information you see on search engines), the search engine will eventually update their results on the ad to make it relevant to whatever is on the page, but they'll probably just end up removing the page completely instead. But yeah really I wouldn't worry about it
You have to remove your ad from search results... You can use Google's removal tool for this process. Refer this page to know how to remove your listings from search results. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=164734
I can not do it because the classified ads site is NOT MINE. I have posted ad in someone else's classified ads site and later on deleted it. But the Google search result still shows Classified Ads site as if one can click the search result and see the ad. Actually when this is done, only Classified Ads Site opens with a message " The ad no longer exists".
There is no other way to remove classified ads from search results…Just wait, with time they will be disappeared from the results.