Removing Deleted Sites, Old URLs, or Files From Search Results

Search engines crawl and index content from every page you publish, with the exception of pages that you prevented search engines from indexing and pages that are password protected.

Just as it takes search engines time to crawl and index a new website, it also takes time for them to recognize that a website or old URLs have changed or are no longer available. This can happen if you deleted a page, image, or file from your site, or if you edited the URL of one of your pages. 

The process of removing pages and files from search results and how long it takes depends entirely on the individual search engines. This also applies to images appearing in Google Images search results.

• Google Search Console
• Bing Webmaster Tools

If you've created a new site and the URLs from the old site are still appearing in search results, you should submit your sitemap to Google and other relevant search engines. This can help speed up both the indexing of your new site and the removal of old site URLs from search results.

AI assistants keep their own copies of the pages they crawl. Content you delete can still appear in their answers until they update.

Removing a page from search results doesn't stop AI crawlers from reading your site. Blocking AI crawlers is a separate setting.

Your llms.txt file also affects what AI reads. It updates automatically when your site changes, so deleting a page also removes it from the file. However, if you've edited the file yourself, it no longer updates. In this case, remove old URLs from it manually, or reset it to the default.