How to uninstall Global Translator Plug-in properly

On my previous post, I explained on why I uninstalled the Global Translator plug-in from this blog. Here is a step by step process that you should take if you want to uninstall the plug-in as well. It won’t be as simple as deactivating the plug-in from your WordPress administration menu as Google might have already indexed your translated pages/posts.

To uninstall Global Translator Plug-in:

1. Deactivate the plug-in from your WordPress administration (the most obvious step). This should stop the plug-in from further connecting to the translation service and translate your posts.
2. Using your FTP program, browse to the Global Translator Cache directory on your blog. It’ll usually be under: /your_wordpress_blog_root_folder/wp-content/gt-cache/
   
   You should then see the languages folders (in acronyms). Keep your FTP program open because we are going to use the folder names for the next steps.
3. Edit your robots.txt file to disallow search engine bots (especially Google) to index the translated posts/pages.
   Add the line “Disallow /[LANGUAGE_ACRONYM]/ ” where [LANGUAGE_ACRONYM] is a language on the cache directory. Add this line on EVERY language acronyms located in the gt-cache folder.
   
4. Use Google Webmaster Tools to request Google to permanently de-index the translated posts/pages.
   To remove the posts from Google Webmaster Tools:
   – Go to Dashboard->Tools->Remove URLs.
   – Click on the New Removal Request
   – Choose “A directory and all subdirectories on your site. Remove all files and subdirectories in a specific directory on your site from appearing in Google search results.” and then click Next.
   
   – Now, add one of the [LANGUAGE_ACRONYM] folder earlier and click the “Submit Removal Request” button.
   – Repeat this process until all languages have been entered and submitted for removal.
   
5. Don’t forget to remove the flag widgets from your blog if you injected the Global Translator codes manually like I do.
   
6. Wait for a few days or a week until all posts have been de-indexed properly by Google and then remove the cache files (basically remove the whole gt-cache folder). The reason why this is put on the last point, is to avoid people getting 404 error which of course will reduce the credibility of your blog. Once the posts have been removed from Google, you can safely remove them.

Feel free to give more feedback on the uninstallation steps to help other bloggers who are planning to uninstall the plug-in.