[thelist] Can the Search Engines find an unlinked page?

Donna Jones donnajjones at gwi.net
Wed Jul 16 00:43:24 CDT 2008


hi Fred and everyone:  just read this thread and find it interesting.  i 
had a similar situation where i was putting client-in-process stuff on 
an extra domain I have (my, ahem development domain).  there was nothing 
on the home page so i thought i could plop stuff in and it would remain 
private.  ah, no.  my half done pages ended up being indexed by google.

i ended up thinking it was people using the google toolbar.  i know 
there was an issue with that, remember reading about privacy concerns a 
way back, and don't remember the details.  anyway, thought i'd mention 
it since no one else has.

just found http://www.toolbartips.com/2006/02/google-toolbar-version-4-beta/

<quote>Privacy
Privacy OptionsAs always, you should be concerned about your privacy 
when using a browser toolbar as information about your browsing activity 
may be sent to the developer of the toolbar. When you first launch this 
toolbar, you are presented with a privacy screen. Be sure to read this, 
and if you enable “PageRank” checking, you should know that all the 
pages you view will be sent to Google. See the Google Toolbar Privacy 
Page for additional information.</quote>

best
donna

> I made a demo site called somesite.com/fred/
> 
> There no link anywhere in the world to that page--in fact that only
> people who ever saw it are me and my client. But he wants me now to
> remove it because he says the search engines will find it and list it.
> I am not opposed to removing it, but I think he's wrong. I see no way
> for any search engine ever to find it. Am I wrong?
> 
> Perhaps since he and I use gmail, Google is reading our email and
> thereby finds it?
> 
> Thanks.



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