Remove Court Records Online – Do You Have A Court Record Ranking Highly on Google?
testDo you need to remove court records from Google? Privacy protection and reputation management have become major challenges for both individuals and businesses in the digital world. Among the greatest threats to one’s personal or professional reputation are old court records.
Previously, anyone who wanted to find public court records would have to physically go to a local office and request a clerk to release them. Nowadays, there’s a good chance that these records are available online, even if they contain highly sensitive information.
Old court records can chase your reputation around for years, particularly if they end up appearing in the search results. The following websites (among others) contain vast repositories of legal information and court records for litigators to use in their research:
- Justia (justia.com)
- Juralindex (juralindex.com)
- Casetext (casetext.com)
- Docketbird (docketbird.com)
- Pacermonitor (pacermonitor.com)
- Plainsite (plainsite.org)
- Atlas Public Records (atlaspublicrecords.com)
- Find A Case (findacase.com)
- Findlaw (findlaw.com)
- Law360 (law360.com)
- Leagle (leagle.com)
- Open Public Records (open-public-records.com)
- Courtlistener (courtlistener.com
- Unicourt (unicourt.com)
- Courtrecords.org
Because these websites are so popular, they are considered by Google and other search engines to be highly authoritative. That means Google tends to display information published on them high up in the search results.
Originally, court records presented minimal privacy and reputation issues, since they were generally only accessible by going through long-winded processes at government offices. Today, once Google’s algorithm indexes this publicly available information, there’s a good chance that the court record will appear on the first page of Google search results whenever anyone searches for your name or the name of your business. Needless to say, this can lead to an online reputation and privacy disaster.
Why court records rank highly in Google:
You may be wondering why court records rank so highly in Google search results, especially if the court record is ranking above other web properties that have existed for years. There are 3 main reasons why this occurs:
1. Clicks: The #1 search ranking factor in 2021 is the number of clicks a specific link gets over time. Generally speaking, the more clicks a link gets, the higher it will rank in search results. When people search for your name or business, they are much more likely to click the court record (than say your website or LinkedIn profile), which causes it to rank higher in search results.
2. Domain Authority: Every site on the Internet has a certain level of “trust” or “domain authority” on Google. The higher a site’s domain authority, the higher the site ranks in search results. The majority of sites that host court records are trusted by Google, which is one of the reasons why old court records can quickly make their way to the top of search results.
3. Links: It is not uncommon for court records to be shared and republished on other sites/blogs/etc. When other sites link to the court record, it signals to Google that the court record must be of value to users, and should rank highly in search results.
Google’s stance on removing court records in the United States:
In the European Union and Argentina, recent legislation obliges Google to remove potentially sensitive information, such as old court records, at the request of the individual concerned. Unfortunately for businesses and individuals in the US, however, the right-to-be-forgotten concept has not been enshrined into state or federal law. Although Google will remove content if there is a valid court order to do so (as tends to be the case when defamatory or illegal content is concerned), they will not remove court records from search results. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean you have to let old court cases haunt you forever.
Understanding your options for removing court records:
If you currently find yourself dealing with a court record ranking highly on Google, there are two ways to fix the issue:
1. Complete Removal: If the admin of a site thats hosts court records agrees to completely remove the court record from their site, the associated link will also be removed from search results. This is the ideal scenario and the first option we look into when helping our clients. If a site removes a court record completely, a “404 page” will appear as seen below:
2. Search Engine Suppression: This process involves creating a network of new positive web properties to push down the court record to page 2+ of Google, where it is much less likely to be seen and cause you issues. The timeframe to suppress a court record to page 2+ of Google varies greatly and depends on several factors. In most cases, suppression is not only effective at removing the old court record from the first page of search results, but it also works to enhance and protect your online reputation.
Looking for professional help?
If you’re looking to remove or suppress court records in search results, our team at Reputation Resolutions can help. The first step in our process is to analyze your specific circumstances and evaluate the website(s) that host the court record(s). Once the analysis has been completed, we will provide you with an honest assessment of the most optimal strategy to remove or suppress the court record(s) as quickly as possible. If we think removal of the court record is a realistic possibility, you will only be charged for our service if we are successful in completely removing the court record(s) from Google search results.
Not only do we guarantee our work, but over the last 7+ years we have solidified our own reputation as one of the most trusted and results-driven online reputation management firms in the United States. Reputation Resolutions is one of the few reputation management firms with an ”A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau. In addition, Reputation Resolutions has been selected as one of the best online reputation management firms in the U.S by three independent rating agencies. To see reviews from past clients who have used our services, click here.
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