PDF SEO – Can you rank Google Drive PDF on Google?

Doing SEO to rank Google Drive (GDrive) hosted PDF on Google and other search engine has always been a question of whether it is possible; and if it is, how. (and, why?)

Does Google index Google Drive PDF?

Prior to discussing anything SEO, I want to find out if Google and other search engines would index Google Drive PDF files.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/*****/edit

A typical Google Drive hosted PDF has the above URL structure.

So I try Googling with this "https://docs.google.com/file/d/: pdf"  and only the Google Doc homepage comes up.

Next, I simply try "drive.google.com pdf", the first result is actually a Google Drive  Folder full of PDFs.

The interesting things so far are:

• The folder is titled "PDF", which shows up as the meta title in SERP.
• The author puts in a detailed description in Google Drive, which shows up as the meta description in SERP.

So now we know it is possible to rank a Google Drive folder, but what would be the use case though.

Anyway, as we scroll down further on the SERP for "drive.google.com pdf"; we start seeing 2 actual Google Drive PDF is being ranked.

The file name is the meta title, and the meta description is simply "Sign in. Loading.."; likely because the PDF has no description to begin with.

At this point, I am not sure how Google decides to show these PDFs and not others:

• The PDF file names are not anything significant
• The PDF file creators are nowhere near me, geographically (I am based in Asia).
• The PDF files also have no (meta) description.
• A brief check using ahrefs backlink checker shows that it has zero backlink; though I highly doubt its accuracy.

Let's re-organize see how our findings so far relates to PDF SEO:

• It is possible to have PDF appeared on SERP, but we have no idea how Google decides what to show.
• PDF file name = Meta title
• PDF file description = Meta description
• Backlink doesn't matter (?).

Now, I happened to know a really popular PDF on Google Drive called "The playbook.pdf".

By searching simply with the search term "The playbook.pdf" or its variation like "The playbook pdf", "The_playbook.pdf", "the playbook pdf"; we got the Google Drive PDF as the first result.

At this point, I decided to start looking into how Sharing permission would affect public access.

The playbook PDF is set to "Anyone can view" permission; which is not the same as "Anyone with the link can view" permission.

After much digging, it seems like Google has killed the "Anyone can view" permission (as of 2025). Files that are shared with this level of permission previously remain unaffected, but newly uploaded files would no longer have access to "Anyone can view" permission.

By doing this, Google has officially killed the possibility of getting Google Drive PDF indexed by SERP.

So, in conclusion, it is not possible to rank Google Drive PDF on search engine in 2025.

‍