For this website I’m working on, there were a few existing pages that I decided not to use. When I google the site and it takes me to the google results, below the actual website title that I’d click on, it has a few “recommended” pages that are being listed. There is like 6 pages listed and only 2 of them are actually being used on the site. I’ve tried removing those pages from being live, but they still show up and a 404 page shows up on my site if I click one of those pages that I removed.
I’ve been working on this site for months and those pages listed haven’t changed. Is there a way to update them to display actual pages that I created/in use?
I don’t want people who google the site to be clicking on inactive pages.
Are you using Google Search Console?
You can’t change what Google recommends but you can submit sitemaps.