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
-
If I deindex a page then will Google stop counting those links pointing to it?
Hey everyone, I am deindexing some posts of my website as I think they are not providing any value to the users. My question is that if I deindex a post and it has some good quality links pointing to it, will google stop those links counting for my website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bunnypundir0 -
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
Our site is on a secure server (https) will a link to http:// be of less value?
Our site is hosted on a secure network (I.E. Our web address is - https://www.workbooks.com). Will a backlink pointing to: http://www.workbooks.com provide less value than a link pointing to: https://www.workbooks.com ? Many thanks, Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam.at.Moz0 -
Will these 301's get me penalized?
Hey everyone, We're redesigning parts of our site and I have a tricky question that I was hoping to get some sound advice about. We have a blog (magazine) with subcategory pages that are quite thin. We are going to restructure the blog (magazine) and feature different concert and have new subcategories. So we are trying to decide where to redirect the existing subcategory pages, e.g. Entertainment, Music, Sports, etc. www.charged.fm/magazine Our new ticket category pages ( Concert Tickets, NY Yankees Tickets, OKC Thunder Tickets, etc) are going to feature a tab called 'Latest News' where we are thinking of 301 redirecting the old magazine subcategory pages. So Sports News from the blog would 301 to Sports Tickets (# Latest News tab). See screenshot below for example. So my question is: Will this look bad in the eyes of the GOOG? Are these closely related enough to redirect? Are there any blatant pitfalls that I'm not seeing? It seems like a win/win because we are making a rich Performer page with News, Bio, Tickets and Schedule and getting to reallocate the link juice that was being wasted in an pretty much useless page that was allowed to become to powerful. Gotta keep those pages in check! Thoughts appreciated. Luke Cn6HPpH.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | keL.A.xT.o0 -
Moving career site to new URL from main site. Will it hurt SEO for main page?
For one of our clients we are building a career site and putting it under a different URL and hosting service (mainly due to security concerns of hosting it under the same host and domain). almost 100% of the incoming traffic to their current career section (which it is in a sub-folder) receives traffic for branded keywords (brand + job/career/employment), that is, there are no job position specific keywords. The client is now worried that after moving the site, the inbound traffic to the main site will be severely affected as well as the SERP results. My questions are, will the non-career related SERPs be affected? I don't see how will they be but I could be wrong If no, how could we reassure her that the SEO to the main site wont be affected? are there any case studies of a similar case (splitting part of the website under a new URL and hosting service?) Thank you for your help. PS: this is my first post so please forgive me if this has been asked before. I could not find a good response.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rflores0 -
PDF linkbuilding - heavy or light on graphics since they might print it
Hello, We're writing a PDF on how to choose a product for our niche. We want people to link to the PDF, share it with people, and possibly print it. How heavily should I use graphics and images in this PDF? The corresponding article is full of graphics, charts, and images. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
PDF for link building - avoiding duplicate content
Hello, We've got an article that we're turning into a PDF. Both the article and the PDF will be on our site. This PDF is a good, thorough piece of content on how to choose a product. We're going to strip out all of the links to our in the article and create this PDF so that it will be good for people to reference and even print. Then we're going to do link building through outreach since people will find the article and PDF useful. My question is, how do I use rel="canonical" to make sure that the article and PDF aren't duplicate content? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Will an active forum on our domain help with rankings by fresh content?
We have a very large ecommerce store with little fresh content being added, accept through a web blog on the sub domain. We are thinking of moving over our blog that is on another domain entirely and has a lot of active users. But first I want to make sure it will actually help the domains rankjings, and second i'm concerned about the duplicate content on the old forum if we move it to the main domain. Should we just copy over all the content, 301 the old forum URL's to the new ones? Thanks much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0