Ensuring Assets (PDFs, PowerPoint Files, Word Docs, etc.) are Indexable on Site
-
Hi there - I'm working on an educational site in which users will be able to search our repository of PDF articles, PowerPoint files, and so on through an on-site search engine. What is the best way to ensure each of these documents/assets are indexable by Google since they technically don't reside on an HTML page....they are just pulled up if the user searches for them? The site itself is just a few pages, but the files, articles, and videos in the repository are in the hundreds. Should I just name and tag them properly and make sure they're all included in an XML site map? Anything else suggested?
Thanks very much!
-
The more links a sitemap the it harder it is for people to follow but should be ok for search spiders.
-
Thanks for your response Chris! Good suggestion on the HTML sitemap. Any concerns if there are a couple of hundred links on this HTML site map page?
-
I would build 2 sitemaps for these files, 1 XML sitemap and 1 HTML sitemap, separate from the main sitemap and add these to Google WMT. The HTML Sitemap could also be used as a directory for visitors too.
Where possible link to the documents from the site too, this will increase the chances that the assets are indexed by Google.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Indexing Issue
Hi, We have moved one of our domain https://www.mycity4kids.com/ in angular js and after that, i observed the major drop in the number of indexed pages. I crosschecked the coding and other important parameters but didn't find any major issue. What could be the reason behind the drop?
Technical SEO | | ResultFirst0 -
Tracing Redirects to a Site
I wonder if anyone has used any tools where you can trace the redirects pointing to a site? I know there are a number of tools out there that can be used to check where a URL redirects to, but I was wondering if anyone has used a tool where I could trace all redirects with the final URL? I am using this for competitor research so I don't have access to Analytics or Webmaster Tools.
Technical SEO | | BeattieGroup0 -
No index
Screaming frog spider does index pages on our website like: wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/assets/js/frontend/jquery-ui-touch-punch.min.js?ver=2.3.9 wp-content/plugins/mailchimp-for-wp/assets/css/checkbox.min.css?ver=2.3.2 Is it a bad/good idea to set my parameters in Webmastertools and tell Google not to crawl pages that begin with wp/content? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO1 -
WMT "Index Status" vs Google search site:mydomain.com
Hi - I'm working for a client with a manual penalty. In their WMT account they have 2 pages indexed.If I search for "site:myclientsdomain.com" I get 175 results which is about right. I'm not sure what to make of the 2 indexed pages - any thoughts would be very appreciated. google-1.png google-2.png
Technical SEO | | JohnBolyard0 -
Google Indexing Development Site Despite Robots.txt Block
Hi, A development site that has been set-up has the following Robots.txt file: User-agent: * Disallow: / In an attempt to block Google indexing the site, however this isn't the case and the development site has since been indexed. Any clues why this is or what I could do to resolve it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | CarlWint0 -
Walking into a site I didn't build, easy way to fix this # indexing problem?
I recently joined a team with a site without a) Great content b) Not much of any search traffic I looked and all their url's are built in this way: Normal looking link -> not actually a new page but # like: /#content-title And it has no h1 tag. Page doesn't refresh. My initial thought is to gut the site and build it in wordpress, but first have to ask, is there a way to make a site with /#/ content loading friendly to search engines?
Technical SEO | | andrewhyde0 -
Should I show archives on site?
Should I show my archives on my site? I have WordPress and have dragged the archive widget to the bottom. Would this be considered duplicate content?This is what it looks like. October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012
Technical SEO | | MyAllenMedia0 -
Site indexing and traffic increased so dramatically overnight
Number of indexed pages jumped from 39000 to 52000 and traffic increased around 50% in my site.Note: used "site" command to check the indexed pages. I understand this is approximate.In addition, number of crawled pages/day also increased dramatically.No change in the robots.txt, sitemap, crawl errors and duplicate issues. But server migrated to different IT infrastructure. Before any celebration, want to identify the helper. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | gmk15670