alt Hacker News> Moreover, it seems like they may be serving public HTML somewhere that links to these files. As a result, hundreds are in Google search results, many containing PII
This is not how Google works.
Replies
weird-eye-issue • last Wednesday at 1:52 AM
It's exactly how it works, pages don't just magically appear in Google's index.
You need links to pages either from your own website or backlinks from other websites. Alternatively if the page is in your sitemap then Google will typically pick it up or you can manually submit it for indexing. For important pages you would typically want internal links, backlinks, and have it in your sitemap.
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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.