![]() | This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. |
Google and other search engines will often cache the pages they provide in their search result, to avoid having to look up these pages multiple times and thus slow down searches. For most websites, this doesn't cause any particular problem, as many websites will remain (mostly) unchanged between googlebot runs. Wikipedia, of course, is far more dynamic. On many occasions in the past, a page will be vandalized just before the googlebot caches the page. As a result, searches for that article for the next few weeks (until the next googlebot run) will display context from the vandalized version of the page. On biographies especially, this can be a severe problem leading to legal ramifications.
This page describes how to request Google remedy the problem by removing the vandalized page from their search cache.
Note: if the page is suitable for ((NOINDEX))
ing, this makes it slightly easier, as there is a box to tick on the request page.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARTICLE_TITLE
Google should review the request within a few days and remove the offending content. (You will be able to check the status of the request; if request is denied, you have probably made the mistake described in step six: including a word that still exists somewhere else in the article.)
Removal procedures for other search engines are not documented at this time.