Ensuring Assets (PDFs, PowerPoint Files, Word Docs, etc.) are Indexable on Site
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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!
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The more links a sitemap the it harder it is for people to follow but should be ok for search spiders.
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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?
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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.
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