Will a PDF Pass PageRank?
-
I created a PDF - will it pass PageRank?
-
Adding more...
The buttons from some shopping carts will work in .pdf documents. So if you write one with a parts list, you can place a buy button beside each part to make it really easy for the person to purchase.
Also, type your domain name in the pdf. That way, if people print it and want to go back to your website you might get a navigation query. Typing the URL where it can be found might do the same thing.
-
Very interesting discussion indeed. I wonder if "creating a workpath" for text would make it easier to read. But I guess a OCR is going to have a difficult time associating the actual text with the link regardless.
-
We make our links very obvious. I would not try to hide them because I want them clicked (it is hard to monetize a .pdf but easy to monetize an .html page - so I want the visitor to get onto my .html pages).
You can lock .pdf documents so that they can not be edited. Then other webmasters are free to post them on their own domain and give me backlinks. Of, course they could rewrite their own just as any other content can be spun or rewritten.
-
I'll help you by adding one.
... And a thumbs up well spent.
-
What an interesting topic. Has anyone done any testing around effectiveness of PDF vs HTML resources and whether it treats anchor text in the same way?
-
Thanks a ton EGOL, I have been looking around for more info on this subject for quite a while. What are your thoughts on how to create the links? Is it considered black hat tactics to place invisible links in those pdf's? My thinking here is that I know competitors will start stealing our pdf documents to use for their own websites. I was thinking of placing invisible links on some key phrases that link to product pages, and then when competitors upload our pdf's to their site, we get backlinks from their websites. Does that make sense, and does it seem like a viable strategy or a potentially penalizing one?
-
Thank you. I really like this subject and enjoyed preparing that answer!
-
Wow, way to give an absolutely excellent answer. I wish I could give more than 1 thumbs up!
-
Links in .pdf documents will be displayed in your Google Webmaster Tools Backlinks, they will accumulate pagerank (I have some PR6 pdf documents), and they will pass pagerank.
It is a good idea to place links into .pdf documents that you give away on the web not only for pagerank reasons but also to give users an easy link to visit your site for more information. Think about usability when you create .pdf documents in the same ways that you think about usability for your website.
Also, if you complete the "properties" attributes of .pdf documents you can give them a title that will appear in the SERPs like a title tag on an .html webpage. I get lots of traffic from the SERPs that come straight into my .pdf documents and then click a link in the document that takes them to a relevant page on my website.
Finally... in addition to .pdf documents you can also get viable backlinks and clickthroughs from .ppt (PowerPoint) .xls (Excel) and other types of files. Consider allowing other webmasters to include them on their site. That way they can bring you links from other domains.
-
From what i have seen its a little unclear, and would largely be dependant on how you create the pdf. Provided your pdf has been created using a text editor for the text (and not mad up of a bunch of images) then if pdf's are crawled - at least you stand a chance of the text and so on ranking in the first place. (You can google search by file type, including pdf, so one would assume they should rank in their own right if tagged and as text).
Whether a pdf will pass rank or not? I would suggest it should - provided it actually ranks itself in the first place (sounds obvious I know).
-
Depending on how it's uploaded on to the page, the page can still build links to it and gain in authority and trust. The content of the PDF will likely not be able to be crawled by the engines though.
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
-
Our new site will be using static site generator which is supposed to be better for SEO?
Hi folks, Our dev team is planning on building our new marketing webpages on SSG or Static Site Generator(we are stepping away from SSR). Based on my research this is something that can help our SEO in particular for site speed (our site has a poor score).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TyEl
Are there any challenges or concerns I should be aware regarding this direction? If so what are they and how can this be addressed? Thanks0 -
What will happen if we 302 a page that is ranking #1 in google for a high traffic term?
We're planning to test something and we want to 302 a page to another page for a period of time. The question is, the original page is ranking #1 for a high traffic term. I want to know what will happen if we do this? Will we lose our rank? Will the traffic remain the same? Ultimately I do not want to lose traffic and I do not want to 301 until it has been properly tested.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maxcdn0 -
PDF Cached by Google, but not showing as link
The following pdf is cached by google: http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/files/REFERRAL%20LIST%20OF%20BOND%20AGENCIES_Florida.pdf However, OpenSiteExplorer is not listing any of the links as found in it. With such an authoritative site, I would think Google would value this, right? None of the sites listed rank well though and OpenSiteExplorer's inability to see the links makes me wonder if Google provides these sites any value at all. Is there any link juice or brand mention value here for Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude0 -
Merging Sites: Will redirecting the old homepage to an internal page on the new site cause issues?
I've ended up with two sites which have similar content (but not duplicate) and target similar keywords, rather than trying to maintain two sites I would like to merge the sites together. The old site is more of a traditional niche site and targets a particular set of keywords on its homepage, the new site is more of an authority site with a magazine type homepage and targets the same set of keywords from an internal page. My question is: Should I redirect the old site's homepage to the relevant internal page on the new website...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lara_dar
...or should I redirect the old site's homepage to the new site's homepage? (the old site's homepage backlinks are a mixture of partial match keyword anchor text, naked URLs and branded anchor text) I am in two minds (a & b!) (a) Redirecting to the internal page would be great for ranking as there are some decent backlinks and the content is similar (b) But usually when you do a 301 redirect the homepage usually directs to the new homepage and some of the old site's links are related to the domain rather than the keyword (e.g. http://www.site.com) and some people will be looking for the site's homepage. What do you think? Your help is much appreciated (and hope this makes sense...!)0 -
We will be switching our shopping cart platform from volusion to magento and really cautious / nervous about our rankings / seo stuff. any advice for anyone that has migrated stores, etc. these urls are years old, etc.
shopping cart platform switch and SEO. What do you suggest? What's the best way to ensure we keep rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan0 -
I currently have a client that has multiple domains for multiple brands that share the same IP Address. Will link juice be passed along to the different sites when they link to one another or will it simply be considered internal linking?
I have 7 brands that are owned by the same company, each with their own domain. The brands work together to form products that are then sold to the consumer although there is not a e-commerce aspect to any of the sites. I am looking to create a modified link wheel between the sites, but didn't know if my efforts would pay off due to the same IP Address for all the sites. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HughesDigital0 -
Where does link authority get passed to a stand alone landing page
Hi All, We are currently building a landing page that contains a bunch of funny top 10's, some that aren’t suitable for all customers, it can only be accessed from a PR source or recipient of one of our emails. The question I have is; where will the authority gained from people linking to this page go? Would it be passed to the home page, if there’s a link to it? Or would you recommend a way to control it? Any insight welcome. Cheers Neal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Exclaimer-2868850 -
Best way to stop pages being indexed and keeping PageRank
If for example on a discussion forum, what would be the best way to stop pages such as the posting page (where a user posts a topic or message) from being indexed AND not diluting PageRank too? If we added them to the Disallow on robots.txt, would pagerank still flow through the links to those blocked pages or would it stay concentrated on the linking page? Your ideas and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640