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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Erase.com’s review of 714 of its suppression campaigns suggests that a negative result’s starting position and the number of page-one negatives were more closely associated with page-one clearance than the volume of positive content published. The figures describe one vendor’s campaigns—not a controlled study or a forecast for any individual case. And a result moving to page two may still matter: an Ahrefs analysis found that AI Overviews sometimes cite URLs beyond the first 10 search-result blocks.
What the 714-campaign review measured
In an article published by Search Engine Land on September 30, 2026, Erase.com reported on 714 of its suppression campaigns launched from August 2024 through May 2026 that had enough data for review. The campaigns covered 2,461 negative results. Erase.com counted a negative as suppressed when it no longer appeared on page one at the time of review.
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These are vendor-reported descriptive findings. The article does not provide a control group, statistical uncertainty intervals, or enough information to evaluate how client selection and campaign stopping rules affected the results. The figures show what happened in this reviewed set; they do not establish what caused a result to move or predict an individual campaign’s outcome.
Why the starting search results matter
The typical campaign began with three negative results on page one. In 43% of campaigns, at least one negative occupied the number-one position; in 75%, at least one was in the top three. About three in ten campaigns started with five or more page-one negatives. News articles and government pages together accounted for about three-quarters of the negatives tracked.
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Erase.com reported that starting position and the number of negatives were associated with clearance:
- Campaigns whose worst negative started at position four or lower cleared page one about 3.5 times as often as campaigns whose worst negative started at number one.
- Campaigns whose worst negative started at position two or three cleared about twice as often as those starting at number one.
- Campaigns with one negative cleared page one about four times as often as campaigns with six to ten.
These are comparisons between groups in the vendor’s data, not odds that apply to a particular case. Erase.com summarized its finding this way: “The best predictor of a clean Page 1 was where the worst negative started.” That statement describes its own campaign review, not a validated predictive model.
Publishing more content is not the same as winning top-10 placements
The typical campaign published 29 positive assets, or about 10 per month. Yet campaigns that cleared page one had a median of 28 assets, compared with 29 for campaigns that did not. The more notable difference in the review was how many new assets entered the top 10: a median of six for cleared campaigns and four for those that did not.
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That contrast makes top-10 placements a more useful progress measure than a raw publishing count in this dataset. It does not prove that those placements caused clearance; other differences between campaigns may have contributed.
What kinds of assets reached page one
In a sample of assets that reached page one, contributed articles and interviews made up about 35%; press releases and news pages that syndicate them, 28%; owned websites, 19%; and business and bio profiles, 13%. Erase.com described this as a sample, not a complete count of every asset.
The vendor also reported that second websites were slower to rank than first websites. About a third of second websites had reached page one at review, while most were on pages two to four. The article does not establish that the same pattern will hold for every site or campaign.
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How long page-one clearance took in the reviewed campaigns
Among campaigns that cleared page one, Erase.com reported that 40% had done so by the end of month two, 63% by month three, and 85% by month four. The clock reflects months active at the time of review; the article says actual timelines may have been slightly shorter. These percentages apply only to the subset that cleared page one, not to all 714 campaigns, and they are not a promised schedule for a new campaign.
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Erase.com also cited two separate historical figures: it said 59% of content could be suppressed within three months and 99% within six months, and described 46 documented cases with a four-month median and a 16-month slowest case. Those figures concern different populations or definitions from the 714-campaign clearance subset, so they should not be combined into a single timeline or rate.
Result type can affect scope, but the categories are not a formula
Erase.com grouped result types by reported difficulty moving them:
- Easier to move: court and legal record pages, mugshot sites, and arrest sites.
- Intermediate: local news, social posts, government and regulator pages, and major national outlets.
- Hardest: Reddit threads, review profiles, and complaint profiles.
Within its comparisons, court record pages left page one more than twice as often as Reddit threads, and national outlets were slightly harder to move than local outlets. In a review of 25 Justice Department press releases, releases at least nine years old left page one nearly five times as often as releases five years old or newer. These vendor-reported comparisons do not establish a causal model or a universal ranking: the specific URL, query, location, and other campaign conditions matter.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Page two may still be visible in AI Overviews
Moving a negative URL off page one does not guarantee it will disappear from AI-generated search answers. In a March 2, 2026 analysis of 863,000 keyword search-result pages and 4 million AI Overview URLs, Ahrefs found that 37.9% of cited URLs also appeared in the first 10 blocks for the same query, 31.2% appeared in positions 11–100, and 31.0% were beyond the top 100.
Ahrefs discussed query fan-out—related searches that can surface pages beyond the original query’s results—as a possible explanation for citations outside the top results. The analysis is a snapshot, not evidence that a particular negative URL will be cited or that pushing it past page two will prevent citation. Visibility can vary with the query, time, and location.
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How to scope and monitor a suppression effort
Erase.com’s stated recommendation is: “Removal still comes first when possible.” Treat removal and suppression as distinct paths: first identify whether there is a legitimate route to remove a result; then assess suppression for results that remain. A suppression effort aims to change what ranks, and the vendor’s page-one definition does not mean a URL has been deleted from its publisher’s site.
- Inventory page-one negatives. Record each URL, its starting position, and the query and location used to find it. Count the negatives and note the worst starting rank.
- Classify each result. Note whether it is news, a government or legal page, a social post, a review or complaint profile, or another result type. Check for a legitimate removal route before treating suppression as the only option.
- Set a placement-based progress measure. Track positive assets that actually enter the top 10, not just the number published. Erase.com’s review reported different median top-10 gains for campaigns that did and did not clear page one, but did not prove that placement caused clearance.
- Review search and AI visibility over time. Check the relevant result positions regularly and record whether the URLs appear in AI Overviews or are cited there. A page-two ranking alone does not settle the AI-citation question.
If evaluating a service, ask how it defines “suppressed,” what population its success figures cover, when the clock starts, and whether its reporting distinguishes removal from ranking changes. For the figures discussed here, the key qualification is that they come from Erase.com’s own campaign data.
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