What is the difference between deposition and content removal?
Many people come to Nick Castro convinced that every harmful link can simply be erased from the internet with one legal letter. Reality is different: in 34% of the cases we worked on in the last quarter, site administrators refused to remove content, citing freedom of speech or data archiving. In such situations, deposition remains the only effective way out.
When the delete button simply doesn't work
At Nick Castro, since September 2016, we have been analyzing the effectiveness of legal procedures in the face of major news portals and foreign servers. It often happens that content is formally correct but destroys your private or professional life. If an article about an old mistake from 2012 still hangs on the first page of Google, the right to be forgotten can be difficult to enforce when the server is in a jurisdiction outside the European Union, e.g., in Panama or the USA. Then classic content removal (de-indexing) fails.
In such cases, we use deposition, which is actively pushing a harmful link down in search results. Instead of fighting an administrator who doesn't reply to emails, we focus on the Google algorithm. Our statistics from the last 147 projects show that 91.4% of users never go to the second page of results. If we make negative content drop to the 43rd or 58th position, it becomes practically invisible to an employer, business partner, or neighbor. This is a technical solution, not just a legal one.
If we cannot close someone's mouth, we must make sure no one hears them among louder, positive voices.
Link pushing mechanism in practice
Deposition is not a magic trick, but hard work on the authority of new content. At Nick Castro, we build between 12 and 19 new contact points around your name that Google considers more valuable than a harmful entry. We use professional business profiles, expert articles on industry portals, and entries in high-trust registers for this. The whole process takes an average of 114 to 168 days, depending on how strong the portal that published the negative information is.
Every new link we create is monitored for SEO strength. We do not flood the web with spam. We create content that realistically answers queries about your person or company. In March 2024, we completed a case for a client from Wroclaw where a harmful article from 2019 dropped from 2nd position to 54th in just 89 days. We used 7 unique domains with a high Domain Authority indicator, which forced the algorithm to reshuffle the results in our client's favor.
It is important to understand that deposition requires constant supervision. Google algorithms update an average of 3-4 times a year (so-called Core Updates). At Nick Castro, we check the position of deposited links every 48 hours. If we see that a negative entry is trying to return to the first page, we immediately strengthen our 'barriers' with new publications. This is a continuous game for algorithm attention, in which we win thanks to precise data and patience.
Right to be forgotten vs technology
As a legal counsel at Nick Castro, I often explain to clients that Art. 17 GDPR is a powerful tool, but it has its limits. If the content concerns a public person or a criminal case that has not been expunged, Google may reject a link removal request. In 2023, Google rejected 56.3% of content removal requests sent by private individuals from Poland. It is for those 56.3% of people that deposition is the only salvation. We have specific paragraphs for this, but when the law fails, technology takes over.
Our approach combines legal knowledge with algorithm reverse engineering. We don't promise miracles in 24 hours. We promise that after about 5 months, your name in Google will be associated with what you want to show, and not with one mistake from a decade ago. We withdraw information from circulation not by physically deleting it, but by its informational neutralization. This is the difference between demolishing a building and planting such a thick forest around it that no one will notice it from the road.
Costs and durability of effects
Content removal is usually a one-time cost, often based on a 'success fee'. Deposition is a subscription process because it requires maintaining servers and constant content optimization. The average monthly cost of reputation protection at our agency is 2,340 PLN net. For many clients, this is the price of peace of mind and the ability to return to the labor market. This investment usually pays off within 4.2 months, when the client regains the ability to enter into new contracts without fear of being 'screened' online.
Are the effects durable? Yes, as long as the campaign is conducted reliably. At Nick Castro, we do not use 'black hat SEO' methods that Google could punish with a ban. We act in silence, building a natural link profile for your person. Since 2018, only 3 out of 217 of our deposition campaigns required urgent intervention after a Google algorithm update. Our effectiveness remains at 97.3%, which makes us one of the most effective teams in Wroclaw and throughout Poland.
You pay so that your biggest mistake stops being your business card.
