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Comment by AndroTux

3 months ago

It kind of is, though. Google doesn't randomly try to visit every URL on the internet. It follows links. Therefore, for these files to be indexed by Google, they need to be linked to from somewhere.

10 comments

AndroTux

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xtracto  3 months ago

Exactly , that's whyb"non public" github gists work. They are public, but not indexed anywhere "by default "

Barbing  3 months ago

Good thing, otherwise they would have exposed countless photos via Google Photos.

Today, a photo file might be hosted at:

  photos.fife.usercontent.google.com/pw/[snip]=w[####]-h[####]-s-no-gm?authuser=0

But it used to be a little closer to:

  ...[google_site].com/[superLongAlphanumeric].jpg

And no auth required, URL only!

walletdrainer  3 months ago

> Therefore, for these files to be indexed by Google, they need to be linked to from somewhere.

So? That’s indeed how Google works.

Google does not work how OP describes it.

I’ve investigated similar incidents in the past on other platforms, it was always user error causing links to be public.

  • starkrights  3 months ago

    Can you actually explain why the phrase you cited from OP is wrong? You say that ~”files need to be linked to from somewhere” is correct. How is a file linked to from somewhere [on the internet] if it’s not being served on the internet that Google crawls (ie, HTML)? The only alternative is in… API calls? That Google probably isn’t crawling?

    “Fiverr might be hosting public HTML somewhere” seems like an entirely reasonable alternative phrase to “these links must be linked from somewhere [that Google can crawl] “, at least to someone who is only superficially familiar with how search works.

    The distinction you imply is obvious is not, and your point is thus rather confusing to someone who is not you.

    • walletdrainer  3 months ago

      It’s a huge mistake to assume these links have to originate from fiverr-hosted HTML, it’s far more likely Google is finding them from places like GitHub repos used by fiverr-users.

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