How do I remove negative search results from Google?

Google does not remove pages because they are unwelcome. It removes pages when it is required to or when its policies say it should. That leaves three genuine routes and one workaround, and it is worth knowing which applies before spending money on any of them.

The first route is the source. If the content sits on a site whose owner can be contacted, a polite request sometimes works, especially for old forum posts or an article that has since been corrected. If the publisher deletes it, Google's copy disappears at the next crawl.

The second route is Google's removal policies. Google will remove results that expose personal information such as home addresses, phone numbers, bank details or identity documents, and it has forms for those. In the UK, individuals can also ask Google to delist results about them under data protection law, sometimes called the right to be forgotten. Google weighs each request against the public interest, so it helps a private person more than it helps a business.

The third route is legal. Defamatory content can be challenged, and a court order will get it removed. This is solicitor territory, not marketing, and worth a consultation before deciding anything.

For everything else, the workaround is suppression: publishing and promoting enough authoritative content for your name that the negative result drops off the first page. It is slow, honest and the most common outcome. Anyone guaranteeing removal of a result they do not control is not telling you the truth.