Delisting Trustpilot Pages from Google: Strategies and the Gardaland Case

Introduction

Online review platforms like Trustpilot often rank prominently on Google, shaping a business’s public image. For high-traffic businesses with many negative reviews, a Trustpilot page can become a major reputational liability. Business owners have sought to delist (remove) their Trustpilot profile pages from Google’s search results to mitigate damage. However, this is difficult due to Trustpilot’s policies and Google’s content removal standards. This report explores successful cases where Trustpilot pages were delisted, the steps and tactics used (legal, technical, and procedural), and evaluates each in context of the Gardaland Trustpilot page (a well-known Italian theme park with a heavily negative profile). We highlight which actions proved effective, which failed, and how differences in jurisdiction, content, or platform policies might affect outcomes.

Trustpilot’s Stance: Why Removal is Challenging

Trustpilot does not willingly delete business profiles simply for negative reviews. Once a profile exists, it’s essentially permanent unless specific rules are broken. Trustpilot’s own policy states that “once a business is reviewed on Trustpilot, we don't remove the profile page or the attached reviews unless” there is a breach of guidelines. In other words, a company cannot opt out of Trustpilot or erase its page just because it’s unflattering. One reputation advisor notes that removing your listing is “a completely impossible task” – you can’t deactivate or request deletion, and even unclaiming the profile won’t stop it from appearing on Google. This policy is similar to other review sites (e.g. Yelp) and is intended to preserve authentic consumer feedback, even against a business’s wishes.

Because Trustpilot itself rarely removes profiles or negative reviews on request, businesses turn to indirect methods to get these pages off Google or hidden from public view. Below we outline several strategies that have been used – some successful and some unsuccessful – including legal action, DMCA takedowns, privacy requests, and technical/SEO tactics. We then compare each to the Gardaland Trustpilot situation to gauge whether similar steps could work.

Successful Delisting Strategies: Cases and Key Steps

1. Legal Action and Defamation Claims

One approach is pursuing legal remedies for defamatory or unlawful content. In jurisdictions like the U.K. and EU, businesses (or individuals associated with them) have sued over false reviews and won court orders to remove or delist content. For example, in a high-profile UK case a man who wrote a libelous Trustpilot review of a law firm was ordered to pay damages, and the offending review was taken down. In some instances, Trustpilot has removed reviews after receiving legal notices – one report notes that after a lawsuit was filed, Trustpilot pulled a disputed review within two business days. A French guide on the subject explains that if reviews are clearly defamatory, a business can send Trustpilot a formal cease-and-desist (“mise en demeure”) demanding removal, and if Trustpilot doesn’t comply, file a court action to obtain a removal order. Courts can then compel either Trustpilot or Google to remove or block the content.

Legal steps have been key to success when truly defamatory allegations are present. A favorable court judgment virtually guarantees removal – Google will deindex URLs if presented with a valid court order, and Trustpilot, as a platform, would typically comply with court injunctions (especially within the EU). However, this route is costly and time-consuming (often months of litigation) and only works if the content is provably false or unlawful. Legitimate negative opinions (e.g. complaints about bad service) usually do not meet the defamation threshold, so courts won’t order their removal. Also, in many jurisdictions companies must prove significant harm from a review to claim libel, which is a high bar.

Rejected/Failed Attempts: Legal action fails (or is not even attempted) when the reviews are opinions or truthful accounts, because those are not illegal. Trustpilot explicitly will “not remove a review just because... it’s not based on a genuine experience” unless proven. If a business cannot demonstrate falsity or specific illegality, both Trustpilot and Google will refuse to take down the page. Moreover, threatening reviewers can backfire – Trustpilot may issue a Consumer Warning or even remove the business’s account if it finds a company using legal threats to silence customers. This means a heavy-handed legal approach, absent clear defamation, could worsen the reputational hit.

2. Copyright (DMCA) Takedowns

Another strategy has been using copyright law (DMCA) to force Google to delist the Trustpilot page. The idea is to identify content on the Trustpilot profile that the business owns the copyright to – typically the company’s logo, images, or text copied from its website – and file a DMCA takedown request claiming unauthorized use. Google, under U.S. law, will remove search results that allegedly infringe copyright, often eliminating the entire URL from search. This tactic has indeed been used: reputation firms and forum users report de-indexing Trustpilot pages via DMCA as a “nuclear option” that “works perfectly well” to make the listing “disappear entirely from Google search”.

For example, reputation consultants describe successfully using “a complete de-indexation of the Trustpilot listing from Google” on behalf of clients. On underground forums, businesses have sought help to DMCA Trustpilot pages; one user noted it’s tough “unless you own the copyright on the content – which is unlikely for reviews or logos”. Nonetheless, services have popped up offering to do exactly this: a provider on a reputation marketplace advertised a 90% success rate in removing Trustpilot pages from Google, for a fee of around $5,000. When pressed, the provider admitted their method was a combination of an insider “rep” and DMCA – but other users concluded it was essentially a standard DMCA takedown method. In practice, if Google processes a DMCA request, the Trustpilot URL is deindexed and a notice appears at the bottom of search results indicating removal due to copyright complaint. (Such notices have been observed for some Trustpilot pages in the Lumen database of takedowns, confirming this tactic is used.)

This approach can be key to success if a clear copyright element exists. For an unclaimed Trustpilot profile, the business’s logo is often shown without permission – that logo is copyrighted. Some Trustpilot pages also scrape brief content from the official site (like descriptions or images). By targeting these, companies have achieved delisting. Importantly, this method doesn’t rely on Trustpilot’s cooperation at all – it targets Google’s index directly.

Caveats: While effective, this tactic borders on an abuse of the DMCA if the true goal is to remove negative reviews rather than protect genuine intellectual property. U.S. law requires a “good faith belief” of actual infringement, and using copyright claims to silence reviews is considered a misuse of the system. Companies have faced backlash and even legal penalties for filing false DMCA claims. In cases we found, the claims hinged on something legitimate (like a logo image) to avoid perjury, but it’s a gray area ethically. Also, Trustpilot could respond by simply removing the copyrighted element (for instance, deleting the logo from the profile) and filing a counter-notice, which might allow Google to reinstate the URL. In reality, Trustpilot’s appetite to fight these removals is unclear – they might quietly drop the image and not contest further, meaning the Google deindexing remains in place.

3. “Right to be Forgotten” and Privacy Requests

In the EU (and certain other regions), individuals have a “Right to be Forgotten” – the ability to ask Google to delist URLs that contain personal data that is inaccurate, irrelevant, or excessive. Some business owners have attempted to use this route to remove Trustpilot pages, especially in Europe. For instance, a small business owner might argue that the Trustpilot page constitutes personal data (if their name or personal details are tied to the business) or that it’s no longer relevant. In practice, Google has largely rejected such requests for business-related pages. Google’s removal policies distinguish between private individuals and businesses; one user reported that Google refused their removal request explicitly because “it is for a business listing and not private”, thus not qualifying for privacy delisting. This aligns with Google’s stance that consumer reviews of businesses are in the public interest, not personal information to be scrubbed at will.

Successful uses of privacy laws to delist Trustpilot pages have been limited. The French guide on removal methods notes that Google delisting under privacy grounds will only work “if [there is an] invasion of privacy” – for example, if the Trustpilot page revealed someone’s personal address, phone number, or sensitive personal details that shouldn’t be public. A typical Trustpilot business profile contains reviews about a company, not private data, so privacy-based claims often fail. In nearly all cases studied, if the content in question was about professional or company reputation, Google refused to delist it under data protection laws. One exception could be if the business’s name is actually a person’s name (e.g. a sole proprietor), making the search result feel personal. Even then, Google weighs the public’s right to know.

Key insight: Privacy/legal removals were successful only in edge cases – for instance, where an individual’s name was mentioned in a harsh review, that person might get the URL suppressed for searches of their name (but not for the business name). Overall, this approach has not been a major factor in known successful Trustpilot page delistings, especially for high-profile businesses, because the content is considered commercial in nature.

4. Working Through Trustpilot’s System

Some owners have tried to deal with the problem at the source – i.e. on Trustpilot itself – by moderating or removing content so that even if the page remains on Google, it’s less damaging. Flagging reviews for violations of Trustpilot’s guidelines is a primary tool. Trustpilot allows businesses to report reviews that contain things like harassment, hate speech, profanity, or defamation, as well as reviews that seem fake or that disclose personal data. In the past, another tactic was requiring reviewers to provide proof of purchase – businesses could challenge a review as potentially fake, and if the reviewer failed to prove they were a genuine customer, Trustpilot would take the review down. This was one of the “few reliable methods” to remove bogus negatives, according to practitioners.

However, Trustpilot tightened its content integrity practices around 2023–2024. The proof-of-purchase removal route has largely been “phased out” or broken – companies report that even with clear evidence a reviewer never interacted with them, Trustpilot often refuses to remove the review now. A Reddit discussion in mid-2023 noted “you can’t report fake reviews anymore… they just say their AI deems the review as true” even if no proof is provided. At the same time, legitimate positive reviews were sometimes filtered out by Trustpilot’s automated systems, leaving some businesses feeling doubly hurt. These changes have made it harder to cleanse a profile by selectively removing bad reviews.

That said, a business can still flag clearly illegal or policy-violating content (e.g. a review that contains slurs or blatantly false factual claims). If a review obviously breaches Trustpilot’s rules (for example, by using hate speech or revealing someone’s personal home address), Trustpilot will remove it. Incremental success has been achieved by persistently flagging each unfair review – but this is slow and often only removes a few among many. Trustpilot’s help center is clear that they won’t remove reviews just because they’re negative or one-sided, as long as they don’t violate specific guidelines. This means if a business’s Trustpilot page is full of bad (but genuine) customer experiences, the company cannot expect Trustpilot to wipe them out en masse.

One scenario where Trustpilot itself may effectively hide a profile is if the business is found to be engaging in misconduct on the platform. Trustpilot has a “Consumer Warning” system for companies that manipulate reviews or abuse the system. If a company is caught buying fake reviews, threatening reviewers, or otherwise “misusing Trustpilot”, Trustpilot can issue a red warning banner on their profile and stop sharing that page’s data with search engines. According to Trustpilot’s legal page, when a Consumer Warning is placed, they “stop sharing data like the TrustScore, star rating and other review data that search engines may display in their search results”. In effect, the page might no longer show rich snippets (stars) on Google and could drop in ranking. In extreme cases (e.g. “bad-fit” businesses involved in fraud or hate), Trustpilot may remove or block the profile entirely. Notably, this mechanism is meant to protect consumers, not to help the business – it’s essentially a penalty. Any high-profile instances of Trustpilot pages vanishing from Google due to this were because the business was flagged for bad behavior (for example, fake review schemes). From the business owner’s perspective, this is not a “strategy” to pursue – no legitimate company would want to trigger a Trustpilot penalty just to hide their profile.

Summary: Cleaning up a Trustpilot page via Trustpilot’s own processes has only partial success. Key wins have included removal of outright defamatory comments (when clearly identified and proven), deletion of reviews by non-customers, and prevention of new fake reviews. But key failures are evident in the inability to remove the profile or the bulk of negative (but honest) reviews. Trustpilot’s stance forces businesses to either live with the bad reviews or seek outside interventions (Google removal, PR countermeasures, etc.).

5. SEO Suppression and Other Workarounds

When direct removal fails, many businesses opt for suppressing the Trustpilot page’s visibility rather than eliminating it. This means using SEO and online content strategy to push the Trustpilot result lower on Google so that most users won’t see it. Since over 90% of searchers never go past the first page of results, if you can get the Trustpilot link to drop to page 2, it effectively “disappears” for the vast majority of your audience. Reputation management companies often specialize in this: they create or promote positive content (official site pages, social media, press articles, alternative review platforms) that can outrank the Trustpilot page for key queries. One service touted “suppression... to push it down where 99% of people will not see it”. This can involve publishing blog posts, news coverage, YouTube videos, business directory listings, and more – all optimized for the business name – to crowd out the negative profile.

In addition, some firms found ways to remove the rich star snippet that made the Trustpilot result so eye-catching. For instance, an agency described a method to “hide your rating in Google search results” for the Trustpilot page. This likely involved altering microdata or the way Google crawls the page (possibly by leveraging the Consumer Warning mechanism mentioned earlier). Screenshots showed a “before and after” where the Trustpilot link no longer displayed a star rating in Google. Without the golden stars, the result is less conspicuous and may attract fewer clicks, thereby gradually dropping in rank due to lower engagement. These technical maneuvers combined with content suppression can make a huge difference in how many people actually encounter the Trustpilot page.

Success cases: Many high-profile companies quietly use SEO suppression because it’s legally safe and discreet. For example, large brands with poor Trustpilot scores (in the travel and entertainment industry, for instance) invest in controlling the top search results with their own domains and positive media. Over time, this pushes Trustpilot down. This strategy doesn’t “delete” anything, but it has proven effective in practice – and it’s the primary approach recommended by reputation experts when removal isn’t possible. One reputation firm even bluntly concludes: “Stop wasting time with Trustpilot support or hiring lawyers to try to get your profile removed… The most effective way to deal with Trustpilot is to bury it.”. This sentiment reflects that after exhausting legal and technical tricks, good old SEO and content management is the fallback.

Failures/Limitations: SEO suppression is not instant – it can take months of effort to see results. It also may require ongoing work; if you stop creating fresh content, Google might once again elevate the Trustpilot page (since it’s on a high-authority domain). Additionally, Google often prioritizes Trustpilot pages for brand name searches (because they’re seen as relevant, aggregated consumer feedback). Competing with that requires creating equally relevant content on equally authoritative sites. Small businesses or those without resources sometimes struggle to generate the needed content to outrank a site as strong as Trustpilot. In such cases, professional reputation agencies are engaged despite the cost. But unlike the uncertainties of legal/DMCA approaches, SEO suppression won’t be blocked by Google or Trustpilot, and thus it’s a dependable if slower path.

Finally, a few businesses have attempted rebranding or domain changes to shake off a bad Trustpilot profile. The logic is that if you change your company name or URL, the old Trustpilot page might not rank for the new name, and a new profile would have to start from scratch (hopefully with better reviews). A French source mentions this “new entity” technique – e.g., changing your registered company name or website so that the old profile is essentially orphaned. This is an extreme measure and usually only considered if the damage is irreparable. In successful cases, a small company might quietly adopt a new brand name to escape a slew of negative reviews tied to the old name. For large or high-profile businesses, however, this is rarely feasible due to the loss of brand recognition and other costs.

Step-by-Step Comparison: Successful Tactics vs. Gardaland’s Case

Below is a step-by-step comparison of the key removal/suppression steps identified above, and an analysis of whether each would be effective for Gardaland’s Trustpilot page (which has a 1.8 “Poor” rating from 500+ reviews):

1. Directly requesting Trustpilot to delete the page: In known cases, Trustpilot only deleted profiles if a business ceased trading or never actually existed (e.g. a page made in error). Such requests have been granted for unclaimed pages of defunct companies, but rejected when the business is active and simply dislikes the reviews. Gardaland’s profile is unclaimed but the park is operational. This does not meet Trustpilot’s limited criteria for removal. Trustpilot has made it clear they won’t honor removal requests just to improve a company’s image. So, a plea to “take down our page” would almost certainly be denied in Gardaland’s case. (In fact, many businesses have tried this and found it “impossible”.)

2. Flagging or removing individual reviews: Other companies have chipped away at their Trustpilot page by reporting fake or violating reviews. Gardaland could attempt this step. For instance, if any review contains profanity, hate speech, or overtly false claims (e.g. something factually untrue like “Gardaland rides are unsafe and kill people,” hypothetically), those can be flagged. Trustpilot will remove reviews that clearly violate policies or can’t be substantiated. Gardaland might also use the “proof of experience” tool – challenge reviewers to prove they visited – in hopes that some negative reviewers won’t respond and their posts get taken down. Effectiveness: Moderating a few reviews could improve the rating slightly or remove the worst comments, but many of Gardaland’s 1-star reviews are likely genuine customer opinions (e.g. complaints about long lines, high prices). Those do not violate any guideline. Trustpilot already responded to others in similar situations that such negative feedback is not defamation. Thus, while Gardaland can clean up any extreme or fake reviews (a worthwhile step), this won’t delist the page from Google and will only marginally improve its content. The profile would still show a very low star rating and hundreds of critical reviews.

3. Legal notices or threats (defamation claims): In successful cases, companies have involved lawyers to send Trustpilot formal letters alleging defamation, sometimes citing laws (e.g. France’s press laws). Gardaland could hire legal counsel to identify any review statements that are legally defamatory (for instance, false claims of criminal behavior or fraud). The lawyers could send a cease-and-desist to Trustpilot demanding removal of those reviews, possibly referencing Italian defamation statutes. If Trustpilot doesn’t comply, Gardaland could then pursue a defamation lawsuit either against the reviewers or against Trustpilot itself (in Denmark, where Trustpilot is based, or in Italy). Effectiveness: This path is uncertain for Gardaland. First, proving defamation: most complaints (“overpriced food,” “long waits,” “rude staff”) are subjective or truthful experiences, which are not defamatory. A few reviewers label the park a “scam” or “exploitative” – while harsh, this is likely seen as opinion unless entirely baseless. Trustpilot’s stance is that negative tone alone doesn’t equal defamation. Gardaland would have to find egregiously false allegations to have a case. Second, even if one or two reviews crossed the line, the remedy would be removal of those specific reviews, not the whole page. It’s highly unlikely a court would order the entire Trustpilot profile delisted absent a very broad issue (for example, if every review were fake or defamatory, which is not true here). So, legal action could maybe eliminate a few particularly unfair reviews but is not a silver bullet. It could also draw unwanted media attention (the “Streisand effect”), portraying Gardaland as trying to silence customers. Unless Gardaland identified a truly libelous review that caused serious harm, this step would probably have limited impact on the overall Google presence of the Trustpilot page.

4. Court order to Google (de-indexing for illegality): As a follow-up to step 3, if Gardaland somehow obtained an Italian court order declaring certain content on the Trustpilot page unlawful, they could present this to Google for de-indexing. Google does honor court orders for removals – for example, in Germany and elsewhere, courts have ordered Google not to link certain pages (the Hacker News reference noted a German court ordering Google not to link to a specific database entry of removed content). In theory, Google could be forced to delist Gardaland’s Trustpilot URL in Italy or EU-wide if an EU court said the page violates law (e.g. contains defamatory material or breaches privacy). Effectiveness: Achieving this would be a long shot. As discussed, getting a court to that point is difficult. And even if one did, the order might apply only in certain jurisdictions. For instance, Google might remove the URL from google.it (Italian search) but not globally, or only for EU users, as per right-to-be-forgotten practices. Since Gardaland draws international visitors, a global removal would be ideal, but an Italian court’s reach is limited. In summary, while legally possible in extreme cases, this is not a practical or timely solution for Gardaland’s scenario.

5. DMCA (copyright) takedown of the Trustpilot page: This is a very relevant option for Gardaland. Their Trustpilot profile (unclaimed) displays the Gardaland Resort logo prominently, and possibly other proprietary graphics. Gardaland unquestionably owns the copyright to its logo and branding. By filing a DMCA notice to Google asserting that Trustpilot is using their logo image without permission, Gardaland could request Google remove the URL from search results. Based on precedents, Google’s response to such a claim is often swift: the Trustpilot page could be deindexed within days if the claim is facially valid. Other businesses have done exactly this, essentially claiming their intellectual property appears on the review page, and thus leveraging Google’s copyright policy to erase the link. Effectiveness: This could be highly effective in the short term. Google would likely honor a well-documented DMCA request (e.g. identifying the logo and providing proof of Gardaland’s ownership). The Trustpilot page would then no longer show up when people Google “Gardaland reviews” or similar – instead, at the bottom of Google’s results there would be a small disclaimer about a removal due to a DMCA complaint. For Gardaland, whose park is a large brand, most searchers might not notice that disclaimer; they would simply not see the Trustpilot page in results. This addresses the core issue directly. Risks and differences: Gardaland must consider the legal and ethical line – this is a technical workaround rather than addressing the reviews head-on. Trustpilot might react by removing the logo image from that profile to nullify the infringement claim. If they do and file a counter-notice, Google could re-list the URL after 10–14 days (unless Gardaland sues Trustpilot in that interval). It’s unknown how often Trustpilot counters these; they might not bother in many cases. Also, filing a DMCA involves swearing that the claim is truthful (which in this case it is – the logo is theirs), so Gardaland is on solid legal ground regarding the logo. This is arguably not an abuse of DMCA, but it is a tactic aimed at the reviews indirectly. The difference in jurisdiction is notable: DMCA is a U.S. law; Google (a U.S. company) responds globally to it. Trustpilot is in Denmark, but that doesn’t stop Google from deindexing Trustpilot URLs globally due to a U.S. copyright claim. In summary, a DMCA takedown stands a good chance of success for Gardaland, as it has for others, though it might only be a partial or temporary fix if Trustpilot contests it.

6. Privacy/RtBF request to Google: Gardaland could attempt a Right to Be Forgotten request with Google EU, arguing that the Trustpilot page constitutes personal or irrelevant data. However, Gardaland is a public-facing business, not a private individual. Prior cases show Google rejecting such requests for businesses on the grounds of public interest. Only if the Trustpilot page contained some personal data (for example, if a review on that page mentioned a specific person’s full name in a harmful context) could a targeted removal happen for that person’s name search. But for general queries like the park name, Google would not delist it just because it’s negative. The French guide rates Google delisting for privacy as having “average” effectiveness at best and only if there’s a privacy violation – which doesn’t apply to standard consumer reviews. Effectiveness for Gardaland: Very low. There’s no clear privacy angle; the page is about a well-known resort, not exposing private info. Google is likely to view the page as valuable for users seeking honest feedback. So this step would almost certainly fail for Gardaland, just as it has for others who tried to label business criticism as personal data.

7. Trustpilot “Consumer Warning” or policy enforcement: Gardaland would not want to trigger this, but for completeness: if Gardaland were to, say, violate Trustpilot’s rules (for example, by soliciting lots of fake positive reviews or by threatening reviewers with lawsuits), Trustpilot might slap a big warning banner on their profile. That warning would also cause Trustpilot to stop feeding Gardaland’s TrustScore and stars to Google. The result might be that even if the page still appears, it shows no rating snippet and clearly warns readers of misconduct by the business. In some cases, Trustpilot has even removed profiles entirely for “bad-fit” businesses engaged in fraud or hateful activity. Effectiveness: This is not a viable “strategy” for Gardaland – it’s more of a punishment. While it could reduce the page’s visibility (no star rating on Google results makes it less eye-catching), the trade-off is a very public indictment of Gardaland on the Trustpilot page itself. For a legitimate theme park, deliberately earning a consumer warning would be reputational suicide. So, this is not applicable as a chosen action. It’s worth noting only that the jurisdiction/platform difference here is Trustpilot’s own policy: they will voluntarily suppress a page’s exposure in search as an enforcement measure, but not on a business’s request to hide bad reviews. Gardaland can’t expect any help from Trustpilot unless Gardaland did something that Trustpilot itself decides to penalize (which is clearly undesirable).

8. Changing the company’s name or domain (rebranding): Successful in rare cases for smaller businesses, this involves the company essentially “shedding its skin” to escape a bad review history. Gardaland could hypothetically rebrand itself under a new name, or change its primary domain from gardaland.it to something new. If done, the existing Trustpilot page (tied to “www.gardaland.it”) might become less relevant – customers would search the new name, and the old Trustpilot page might not rank. Gardaland’s team could also inform Trustpilot that the old entity is closed, possibly prompting Trustpilot to mark the profile as inactive. Effectiveness: For Gardaland, this is not practical. Gardaland is a nationally famous brand (part of the Merlin Entertainments group); renaming the park would cause massive brand confusion and likely cost far more than any benefit gained. High-profile attractions can’t easily change names without losing brand equity. Additionally, competitors’ Trustpilot pages (like Disneyland Paris, Mirabilandia, etc. with similarly low scores) show that large parks tend to tough it out rather than rebrand over bad reviews. This step is thus not effective or realistic for Gardaland, though it might be a footnote option for a small, unknown business with nothing to lose.

9. SEO suppression (burying the Trustpilot result): This is a highly relevant strategy for Gardaland. The Google results for “Gardaland” or “Gardaland reviews” already show some positive or neutral content (e.g. travel blogs, YouTube videos, TripAdvisor/Yelp, etc.). Gardaland can capitalize on its prominence to generate more such content: optimize its own website to rank for “Gardaland reviews” (perhaps by featuring testimonials), engage travel writers or bloggers for press coverage, be active on social media, and encourage satisfied visitors to leave reviews on platforms like Google Maps, Yelp, Tripadvisor, etc. If executed well, over time these pages can outrank the Trustpilot page. Trustpilot’s domain authority is strong, but Gardaland has the advantage of a very well-known name and the ability to produce high-quality official content. By pushing positive pieces (e.g. “Family Trip to Gardaland – Our Wonderful Experience” on a popular blog) and possibly using Trustpilot alternatives (Gardaland could collect reviews on other sites or its own platform), the Trustpilot page’s Google ranking could drop. Reputation specialists report that burying a Trustpilot link beyond page 1 is as good as removal in practice. Effectiveness: This is moderately to highly effective if Gardaland commits to it. It won’t erase the page, but it will severely reduce its visibility. Unlike legal or DMCA tactics, SEO work carries no legal risk and works across all jurisdictions (it doesn’t matter if someone searches from Italy, the US, or elsewhere – if the result is #20 instead of #5, few will find it). The only downside is the time and cost to create the content and possibly the need for ongoing effort to maintain those rankings. Given Gardaland’s resources as a major park, investing in positive PR and SEO is quite feasible. In fact, this step is often the primary long-term solution recommended once quick fixes (like DMCA or removing a few reviews) are done. For Gardaland, focusing on diluting the impact of Trustpilot through strong official content and encouraging happy customers to leave reviews on more favorable platforms (where Gardaland can respond or engage) would likely yield a significant improvement in what prospective visitors see on Google.

Conclusion

Delisting a Trustpilot page from Google is challenging but not impossible. Successful cases show that businesses have employed a mix of legal pressure, creative use of Google’s policies, and reputation management tactics to achieve this:

• Some won partial victories by removing defamatory or fake reviews through Trustpilot or the courts, but this rarely eliminates an entire page.

• Others took the aggressive route of DMCA takedowns, exploiting any copyrighted material on the Trustpilot page to get Google to drop it – a method that has indeed caused Trustpilot pages to vanish from search results.

• Many have concluded that when outright removal fails, the best path is to suppress the negative page’s visibility via SEO and positive content, effectively drowning it out.

For a high-profile business like Gardaland, some of these steps are more applicable than others. A direct Trustpilot removal isn’t on the table given policy constraints. Legal action is unlikely to wipe out the page unless specific unlawful content is present. However, a DMCA request targeting Gardaland’s logo on Trustpilot could very well get the page delisted from Google, as a number of companies have successfully done in similar situations. This would be a key short-term win. In the longer term, Gardaland should pursue proactive reputation management: amplifying positive reviews elsewhere, engaging with customers, and improving its online content so that the Trustpilot page becomes an afterthought in search results. Jurisdiction differences mean Gardaland enjoys the protection of EU data laws for personal privacy, but as a business it doesn’t benefit much from those; instead, it can leverage international tools like the DMCA (a quirk where U.S. law can be used to impact an EU company’s page) and global SEO techniques.

In summary, the steps that were key to others’ success – DMCA de-indexing and sustained SEO suppression – appear to be the most promising for Gardaland as well. By contrast, steps that failed elsewhere (asking Trustpilot for mercy, or claiming “right to be forgotten” as a business) would likely fail for Gardaland too. The differences in content (mostly true consumer experiences vs. any illegal content) and platform policy (Trustpilot’s refusal to remove honest reviews) mean Gardaland must focus on removing the page’s exposure, not the page itself. A combination of a one-time technical removal (if pursued effectively) and ongoing reputation management is the formula that emerges from both the success stories and the constraints of this particular case.

Sources: Successful tactics and policies were identified from a variety of reports and discussions, including Trustpilot’s own help center and legal pages, legal analyses of review removal, expert commentary on forums, and reputation management case studies. Relevant excerpts and examples have been cited throughout, illustrating how business owners achieved (or attempted) Trustpilot delistings and how those approaches compare to Gardaland’s situation.