There are two different removals, and most people only know about one of them. Understanding the difference is 80% of winning.
1. Removal at the source. A DMCA takedown notice to the site hosting your content (or to its hosting provider if the site ignores you). When it works, the content is gone for everyone, everywhere. When it doesn't work, usually because of offshore hosting or anonymous operators, you move to option 2.
2. De-indexing from Google. A copyright removal request filed with Google itself. The leak page may technically stay online, but it disappears from search results. Google accepts these requests from any rights holder through its public reporting form, for free.
Why de-indexing is so powerful for creators specifically: leak traffic is search traffic. Almost nobody browses leak sites hoping to stumble on a specific creator. They search "name + leak" and click what ranks. A leak that no longer appears in search still exists, but it has lost the audience that made it damaging.
The strategy that actually works is running both in parallel, per URL:
- File the source takedown AND the Google request the same day. Don't wait politely for the site to answer first.
- Bing has its own removal process. Worth filing too, same logic.
- Re-check after a few days: confirm the result actually dropped, and catch reuploads under new URLs.
Honest limitation: de-indexing is per URL. Leak sites rotate domains and generate new URLs, so this is a routine, not a one-time fix. The goal state is "new leaks disappear from search before anyone finds them", not "no leak ever exists again". Anyone promising the second one is lying to you.
Takeaway: source removal kills the file, de-indexing kills the audience. File both at once, per URL, and repeat.
Which of the two have you already tried, and how did it go?
Source: r/SuppressLeak · by /u/suppressleak