Are iCloud photo streams shared on a public website crawlable by search engines?

Indeed, it doesn't even try to answer the question. So let's answer it:

The minute you set your photo album to be visible on a public site, then it is indeed crawl-able and searchable by search engines, both text and image search. While the URL of your shared album is unique and not broadcast, there is no access nor content protection on photo album pages, so you should assume that your content on public pages is indexed, searched, and stored by 3rd parties - search engines and others.

URLs, names, tags, and descriptions account for text. The images provide rich sources of scraped information including face recognition, object, and location information.

Connections to the site are indeed encrypted, but nobody should think that public photo albums require authentication, nor that the context on the pages required decrypting to index/scrape/analyze.

Apples public albums are an example of "security via obscurity." Anyone who is truly concerned about keeping their content away from indexers knows that this is not truly secure.

Didn't mean to suggest you had. Simply wanting the original poster of the question, who is obviously concerned about security, to understand the spectrum of risks.

No FUD intended, just describing the risks to fully answer their question. I did not mean to attack you as I explained the types of risks. I apologize for it leading you to attack the nature of my responses.

I'll instead just summarize: If you want your content truly secure from indexers, it should be shared behind an authenticated service. The nature of "public" albums on Apple's site lends them to being indexed as text or images (or videos). The scraped info may be of dubious value, indeed.

Have a great day. Hope the information was helpful.

This does not answer the question.

Hey there dzaffrann,

It sounds like you have some questions about sharing your iCloud Photo Stream on a public site. Here is an article for you with some answers to these questions:

iCloud Photo Sharing FAQ

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5902

Can I share with people who don't use iCloud?

Yes. If you enable Public Website in the settings for your shared album, your photos will be published to a website that anyone can view in an up-to-date web browser. Learn more about inviting people to view your shared album.

Create a shared album - iCloud Help

http://help.apple.com/icloud/#mmc0cd7e99

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!

-Braden

For some context...

Although the public website hosted by Apple may very well be indexed, the data indexed is of dubious value.

Here are some actual URLs for individual images on an Apple hosted public website.

And the URL for the album itself.

Comments are not allowed for public websites, so can't be indexed. I could not find my name in any search associated with image names/tags/descriptions in this public album, although my name appears in the public website.

The site is encrypted.

Anyone who is truly concerned about keeping their content away from indexers knows that this is not truly secure.

And where have I suggested otherwise?

I used the term dubious for a reason. Also offered my contribution as "context" to balance your FUD centric contribution.