When infringing copies of your work appear online, there are two different places to act: the place that stores the copy, and the places that help people find it. These need different requests, go to different companies and have different results.
Host takedown: remove it at the source
A host takedown goes to the platform, social network, file-sharing service or hosting provider that actually stores the infringing file. If the request succeeds, the material is removed or disabled at its location. Every link to that location then stops working, wherever the link was posted.
It is the stronger remedy, but it depends on being able to identify the right service, and on that service responding. Some hosts are slow or unresponsive, and some are located where notices carry little weight.
Search delisting: remove it from the results
A search engine does not store the infringing file. It keeps an index of web pages and shows links to them. A delisting request asks the search engine to stop showing specific URLs in its results for infringement reasons. Major search engines run their own copyright removal processes, and the requests are made per URL.
A delisted page still exists. Anyone with the direct address, or who finds it through another route, can still reach it. What changes is how easily new people stumble on it by searching.
How they fit together
- If you can reach the host and it removes the file, delisting the dead URL is often less urgent: the result will fall away as the page is re-crawled.
- If the host is unresponsive, or the site exists mainly to distribute copies, delisting reduces how visible it is while you keep pursuing the source.
- If copies are spread across many pages, delisting lets you act on each URL that points to infringing content without waiting for every host.
- Re-uploads and mirrors mean neither step is a one-off; both usually need repeating as new URLs appear.
What you need for either
Both requests rely on the same basics: identifying your work, identifying each infringing URL precisely, and a signed statement that you are the owner or authorised to act. Keeping a dated record of what you found and when makes both easier, and makes it simpler to follow up if the material returns.
Neither request is guaranteed. Platforms and search engines make their own decisions, and they may ask for more information or reject a request.