Removing URLs in bulk when directory exclusion isn't an option?

[kurus]

I had a bunch of URLs on my site that followed the form:

http://www.example.com/abcdefg?q=&site_id=0000000048zfkf&l=

There were several million pages, each associated with a different site_id. They weren't very useful, so we've removed them entirely and now return a 404.The problem is, they're still stuck in Google's index. I'd like to remove them manually, but how? There's no proper directory (i.e. /abcdefg/) to remove, since there's no trailing /, and removing them one by one isn't an option. Is there any other way to approach the problem or specify URLs in bulk?

Any insights are much appreciated.

Kurus

[DiamondJewelryEmpire]

try 301 redirect for most important links. http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

[kurus]

Thanks, but the goal is to expedite the removal process via the URL removal tool. We've already 404'd the pages, so they'll be removed from the index. It's a question of timing, since the pages in question are low quality and hurting us in the context of Panda.

[DiamondJewelryEmpire]

You should have 301 your most important pages to the new urls, so that you would keep your juice.

[kurus]

There are no links to these pages, so no juice. There are also no 'new' replacement pages. We just want them out of the index ASAP by any means necessary.

[KeriMorgret]

I'd go into Google Webmaster Tools and their parameter settings and tell them to ignore this parameter.

I would need to look up the exact syntax, but Google does accept some dynamic exclusions and parameters in robots.txt, and you may be able to put that into robots and then use the URL removal tools.