Can PDFs on your website be picked up in search engines?
-
Can PDFs on your website be picked up in search engines? There's a ton of info online that says it can and can't be picked up.
-
Agreed! I had an issue with many PDFs ranking. I've done what I can to clean things up so better pages rank instead (my goal is to sell; I'd rather someone end up on my page that has an "add to cart" button AND a link to the catalog/PDF info).
Anyone who says it can't happen - well, it did to me.
-
Short answer, yes. Search engines are still not as good at crawling and indexing them as well as they are with HTML pages, but they have definitely made strides in recent years. Do a Google search for "filetype:pdf" and you will see all of the PDFs that are indexed in Google.
That being said, they are still not ideal for SEO so I recommend not using them whenever possible. I wrote a couple of blog posts about this issue - http://streamlinemetrics.com/blog/seo-for-pdfs-optimizing-pdf-files-for-search-engines.php and http://streamlinemetrics.com/blog/how-to-redirect-pdf-files-with-php-asp-or-htaccess-for-seo-seo-for-pdfs-part-2.php.
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
-
My organic search dropped over 25% since March Update....Any insights?
My website is purecbdvapors.com. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Anthony
On-Page Optimization | | Purecbdvapors0 -
Which URL Structure is best for New Website?
Hello All, I have one client and he want to develop his website but the he want the URL structure for his website page like below: http://www.example.com/category/xxproduct.html But I have suggest him below URL Structure http://www.example.com/category/xx-product.html So Can you people please suggest me that from above which URL structure is better from SEO side as well as from Visual side..? Is using - is better to separate the words in URL?
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
How to make video snapshot appear near your search result
What's the proper way to have google display a video near the search result for my webpage (I'm using LeadPlayer to play videos). I think that the information regarding the video is there (I also submitted a video sitemap) but when I do a search the author picture is displayed instead of the video. Have I set anything wrong? How can I display the video if my post contains a video? You can try searching "phraseexpander create customizable templates" There's my youtube video and then the result from my webpage http://www.phraseexpander.com I would like to display the video as a result. Thanks a lot. Andrea
On-Page Optimization | | nagar0 -
Incoming Search Terms
Hi guys, I saw a blog post recently where the author added a list of "incoming search queries" to the bottom of his post, obviously to improve the post's ranking for those terms. On one hand, I suppose it it does help users find that post. On the other, it seems lazy and somewhat dodgy, but I haven't found any opinions on it elsewhere and have not seen this practice in my experience. What're your thoughts? Outright search engine manipulation? Cheers, Carlo SCWYt
On-Page Optimization | | mtgconsulting0 -
Can someone take a quick look at my blog?
hey guys, just joined seomoz. was wondering is someone could take a quick look at my blog and see if it is fine to start hitting SEO hard? my top bar title has a few of my targeted keywords, is that a good idea or? http://www.onestopmuscle.co.uk
On-Page Optimization | | FLEAR0 -
Authorship and 50% Drop in Search Traffic
Hi. I had some problems with my content being copied by other sites, and was suggested to claim my pages. Immediately after Google started listing the posts with my photo next to them my traffic picked up slightly but since, over the past few weeks, it has dropped by about 50%! It seems that the average position has declined (as has the CTR) At the same time as claiming authorship I added the post date to my articles which I have now removed. Does anyone have any ideas for me? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | ben10000 -
Website redesign: site going from .php to .html
A site I'm working on is being redesigned because the current platform does not allow for content to be changed easily. In the process, they are going from .php to .html. I am concerned about their losing link juice. Can a site work with the old content remaining .php and the new content being .html or should all pages stay .php?
On-Page Optimization | | cakelady0