Dynamically-generated .PDF files, instead of normal pages, indexed by and ranking in Google
-
Hi,
I come across a tough problem. I am working on an online-store website which contains the functionlaity of viewing products details in .PDF format (by the way, the website is built on Joomla CMS), now when I search my site's name in Google, the SERP simply displays my .PDF files in the first couple positions (shown in normal .PDF files format: [PDF]...)and I cannot find the normal pages there on SERP #1 unless I search the full site domain in Google. I really don't want this! Would you please tell me how to figure the problem out and solve it. I can actually remove the corresponding component (Virtuemart) that are in charge of generating the .PDF files. Now I am trying to redirect all the .PDF pages ranking in Google to a 404 page and remove the functionality, I plan to regenerate a sitemap of my site and submit it to Google, will it be working for me? I really appreciate that if you could help solve this problem. Thanks very much.
Sincerely
SEOmoz Pro Member
-
Recently discovered this:
Indicate the canonical version of a URL by responding with the
Link rel="canonical"
HTTP header. Addingrel="canonical"
to thehead
section of a page is useful for HTML content, but it can't be used for PDFs and other file types indexed by Google Web Search. In these cases you can indicate a canonical URL by responding with theLink rel="canonical"
HTTP header, like this (note that to use this option, you'll need to be able to configure your server).Link: <http: www.example.com="" downloads="" white-paper.pdf="">; rel="canonical"</http:>
Google currently supports these link header elements for Web Search only.
-http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
-
I would consider either excluding the PDFs from the index with your robots.txt in conjunction with resubmitting your sitemap (which you're all over), or placing a text link at the bottom of each PDF pointing back to the HTML version of that page (which, all things being equal, should cause the HTML version of the page to rank instead). I am not sure about serving 404 headers to Google instead of the PDFs that are currently in the index. Why not 301 to the HTML version of each PDF? Obviously that can't be a permanent solution, as you will eventually want to restore the functionality to users, right? But it will tell Googlebot that the content of each PDF is to be found from here on out at the URL containing the HTML version. This is a case where it would be handy to serve one thing to the bots and another to the human viewers, but I am afraid that doing so could get you into trouble.
I am interested in your case though—let us know what, if anything besides the 404s and sitemap resubmittal, you end up trying and what happens with it. I'm also curious to know what other mozzers suggest.
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
-
Page Rank grows, but Trust falls
Why it's happening? How to fix it? This problem is on this website http://www.skydas.lv http://www.m-lux.lv Supporta metāla durvis dzīvoklim ngm_445922407.jpg
Technical SEO | | Felter0 -
Home Page Ranking Instead of Service Pages
Hi everyone! I've noticed that many of our clients have pages addressing specific queries related to specific services on their websites, but that the Home Page is increasingly showing as the "ranking" page. For example, a plastic surgeon we work with has a page specifically talking about his breast augmentation procedure for Miami, FL but instead of THAT page showing in the search results, Google is using his home page. Noticing this across the board. Any insights? Should we still be optimizing these specific service pages? Should I be spending time trying to make sure Google ranks the page specifically addressing that query because it SHOULD perform better? Thanks for the help. Confused SEO :/, Ricky Shockley
Technical SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Why would GWT say 0 pages indexed ?
Hi Looking in GWT > Google Index > Index Status says 0 pages indexed Yes if i search manually on google for brand site is listed, and i see organic traffic from Google in analytics I take it this is likely an error in GWT and nothing to worry about ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Does it hurt to have a dynamic counter in your page title?
Currently we work with page titles which display the number of products we have as a counter. This number is highly volatile and can change every day, so that our page title changes all the time. We did this to improve user experience, meet expectations and improve click through rates. Question is whether this can hurt our rankings and if someone has experimented with this or has experience with this?
Technical SEO | | ElmarReizen0 -
Google Page speed
I get the following advice from Google page speed: Suggestions for this page The following resources have identical contents, but are served from different URLs. Serve these resources from a consistent URL to save 1 request(s) and 77.1KiB. http://www.irishnews.com/ http://www.irishnews.com/index.aspx I'm not sure how to fix this the default page is http://www.irishnews.com/index.aspx, anybody know what need to be done please advise. thanks
Technical SEO | | Liammcmullen0 -
Why is my office page not being indexed?
Good Morning from 24 degrees C partly cloudy wetherby UK 🙂 This page is not being indexed by Google:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/office-to-let-leeds/ 1st Question Ive checked robots txt file no problems, i'm in the midst of updating the xml sitemap (it had the old one in place). It only has one link from this page http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/Site-Map/ So is the reason oits not being indexed just a simple case of lack if SEO juice from inbound links so the remedy lies in routing more inbound links to the offending page? 2nd question Is the quickest way to diagnose if a web address is not being indexed to cut and paste the url in the Google search box and if it doesnt return the page theres a problem? Thanks in advance, David0 -
Page rank 2 for home page, 3 for service pages
Hey guys, I have noticed with one of our new sites, the home page is showing page rank two, whereas 2 of the internal service pages are showing as 3. I have checked with both open site explorer and yahoo back links and there are by far more links to the home page. All quality and relevant directory submissions and blog comments. The site is only 4 months old, I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the fact 2 of the lesser linked pages are showing higher PR? Thanks 🙂
Technical SEO | | Nextman0 -
GWT indexing wrong pages
Hi SEOMoz I have a listings site. In a part of the page, I have 3 comboboxes, for state, county and city. On the change event, the javascript redirects the user to the page of the selected location. Parameters are passed via GET, and my URL is rewrited via htaccess. Example: http:///www.site.com/state/county/city.html The problem is, there is A LOT(more than 10k) of 404 errors. It is happenning because the crawler is trying to index the pages, sometimes WITHOUT a parameter, like http:///www.site.com/state//city.html I don't know how to stop it, and I don't wanna remove it, once it's very clicked by the users. What should I do?
Technical SEO | | elias990