Google has updated, in a big way, its how to “Remove images hosted on your site from search results” help documentation page. Google said, “Part of our ongoing efforts to keep our documentation accurate, we updated the documentation for image removals with more precise language, and addressed some documentation feedback.”
So what changed?
Previously, this section read:
For quick removal, use the Removals tool to remove images hosted on your site from Google’s search results within hours.
Now that section reads:
For emergency image removal
To quickly remove images hosted on your site from Google’s search results, use the Removals tool. Keep in mind that unless you also remove the images from your site or otherwise block the images as described in the non-emergency image removal section, the images may resurface in Google’s search results once the removal request expires.
Google added this new section:
If you don’t have access to the site that’s hosting your images (for example a CDN) or your CMS doesn’t provide a way to block images with the noindex X-Robots-Tag HTTP header or robots.txt, you might need to delete the images altogether from your site.