how does G-bot react on no index?

[dotremy]

Hi,

Simple question.
If i point my browser to domain.com/somedir/
and there is no index, my browser shows me the files in there. (love that at 'certain' sites)

Does googlebot see it the same as my browser, and follow all the files, or is it just looking for index.htm/html/asp/php etc. and goes away if that is not there?

[takagi]

If you do a search like this [google.com] one, you will see Google already indexed a lot of similar pages.

[dotremy]

I see, thank you.

So instead of trying to link all contents of a dir on a index I could just remove the index, and the bot will follow all?

[takagi]

Yes, I think so. But there are some other points to think about:

1. You cannot give the pages a good link text. It is just the filename.
2. Every file in the directory will be found. Maybe there are some files in the directory you don't want to be indexed or some files you forgot to delete are still there and Google will still find them even if you remove the (other) links.
3. There might be a security issue. If Google has read permission for the directory, than everyone on Internet has. I'm no hacker or expert on this, but it might attract some bad people too.
4. You cannot change the Title of the index page.