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.
-
Hey Bob
I think you should forget about any kind of perceived conventions and have whatever you think works best for your users and goals.
Again, look at unbounce, that is a custom landing page with a homepage link (to share the love) but not the general site navigation.
They also have a footer to do a bit more link love but really, do what works for you.
Forget conventions - do what works!
Hope that helps
Marcus -
I see, thanks! I think it's important not to have the ecommerce navigation on the page promoting the pdf. What would you say is ideal as far as the graphical and navigation components of the page with the PDF on it - what kind of navigation and graphical header should I have on it?
-
Yep, check the HTTP headers with webbug or there are a bunch of browser plugins that will let you see the headers for the document.
That said, I would push to drive the links to the page though rather than the document itself and just create a nice page that houses the document and make that the link target.
You could even make the PDF link only available by email once they have singed up or some such as canonical is only a directive and you would still be better getting those links flooding into a real page on the site.
You could even offer up some HTML to make this easier for folks to link to that linked to your main page. If you take a look at any savvy infographics etc folks will try to draw a link into a page rather than the image itself for the very same reasons.
If you look at something like the Noobs Guide to Online Marketing from Unbounce then you will see something like this as the suggested linking code:
[](<strong>http://unbounce.com/noob-guide-to-online-marketing-infographic/</strong>)
[](<strong>http://unbounce.com/noob-guide-to-online-marketing-infographic/</strong>)
[](<strong>http://unbounce.com/noob-guide-to-online-marketing-infographic/</strong>)
Unbounce – The DIY Landing Page Platform
So, the image is there but the link they are pimping is a standard page:
http://unbounce.com/noob-guide-to-online-marketing-infographic/
They also cheekily add an extra homepage link in as well with some keywords and the brand so if folks don't remove that they still get that benefit.
Ultimately, it means that when links flood into the site they benefit the whole site rather than just promote one PDF.
Just my tuppence!
Marcus -
Thanks for the code Marcus.
Actually, the pdf is what people will be linking to. It's a guide for websites. I think the PDF will be much easier to promote than the article.I assume so anyway.
Is there a way to make sure my canonical code in htaccess is working after I insert the code?
Thanks again,
Bob
-
Hey Bob
There is a much easier way to do this and simply have your PDFs that you don't want indexed in a folder that you block access to in robots.txt. This way you can just drop PDFs into articles and link to them knowing full well these pages will not be indexed.
Assuming you had a PDF called article.pdf in a folder called pdfs/ then the following would prevent indexation.
User-agent: * Disallow: /pdfs/
Or to just block the file itself:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /pdfs/yourfile.pdf Additionally, There is no reason not to add the canonical link as well and if you find people are linking directly to the PDF then having this would ensure that the equity associated with those links was correctly attributed to the parent page (always a good thing).Header add Link '<http: www.url.co.uk="" pdfs="" article.html="">; </http:> rel="canonical"'
Generally, there are better ways to block indexation than with robots.txt but in the case of PDFs, we really don't want these files indexed as they make for such poor landing pages (no navigation) and we certainly want to remove any competition or duplication between the page and the PDF so in this case, it makes for a quick, painless and suitable solution.
Hope that helps!
Marcus -
Thanks ThompsonPaul,
Say the pdf is located at
domain.com/pdfs/white-papers.pdf
and the article that I want to rank is at
domain.com/articles/article.html
do I simply add this to my htaccess file?:
Header add Link "<http: www.domain.com="" articles="" article.html="">; rel="canonical""</http:>
-
You can insert the canonical header link using your site's .htaccess file, Bob. I'm sure Hostgator provides access to the htaccess file through ftp (sometimes you have to turn on "show hidden files") or through the file manager built into your cPanel.
Check tip #2 in this recent SEOMoz blog article for specifics:
seomoz.org/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seosJust remember too - you will want to do the same kind of on-page optimization for the PDF as you do for regular pages.
- Give it a good, descriptive, keyword-appropriate, dash-separated file name. (essential for usability as well, since it will become the title of the icon when saved to someone's desktop)
- Fill out the metadata for the PDF, especially the Title and Description. In Acrobat it's under File -> Properties -> Description tab (to get the meta-description itself, you'll need to click on the Additional Metadata button)
I'd be tempted to build the links to the html page as much as possible as those will directly help ranking, unlike the PDF's inbound links which will have to pass their link juice through the canonical, assuming you're using it. Plus, the visitor will get a preview of the PDF's content and context from the rest of your site which which may increase trust and engender further engagement..
Your comment about links in the PDF got kind of muddled, but you'll definitely want to make certain there are good links and calls to action back to your website within the PDF - preferably on each page. Otherwise there's no clear "next step" for users reading the PDF back to a purchase on your site. Make sure to put Analytics tracking tags on these links so you can assess the value of traffic generated back from the PDF - otherwise the traffic will just appear as Direct in your Analytics.
Hope that all helps;
Paul
-
Can I just use htaccess?
See here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-advanced-relcanonical-http-headers
We only have one pdf like this right now and we plan to have no more than five.
Say the pdf is located at
domain.com/pdfs/white-papers.pdf
and the article that I want to rank is at
domain.com/articles/article.pdf
do I simply add this to my htaccess file?:
Header add Link "<http: www.domain.com="" articles="" article.pdf="">; rel="canonical""</http:>
-
How do I know if I can do an HTTP header request? I'm using shared hosting through hostgator.
-
PDF seem to not rank as well as other normal webpages. They still rank do not get me wrong, we have over 100 pdf pages that get traffic for us. The main version is really up to you, what do you want to show in the search results. I think it would be easier to rank for a normal webpage though. If you are doing a rel="canonical" it will pass most of the link juice, not all but most.
-
PDF seem to not rank as well as other normal webpages. They still rank do not get me wrong, we have over 100 pdf pages that get traffic for us. The main version is really up to you, what do you want to show in the search results. I think it would be easier to rank for a normal webpage though. If you are doing a rel="canonical" it will pass most of the link juice, not all but most.
-
Thank you DoRM,
I assume that the PDF is what I want to be the main version since that is what I'll be marketing, but I could be wrong? What if I get backlinks to both pages, will both sets of backlinks count?
-
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.
You can read more her http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
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
-
Penalty for duplicate content on the same website?
Is it possible to get a penalty for duplicate content on the same website? I have a old custom-built site with a large number of filters that are pre-generated for speed. Basically the only difference is the meta title and H1 tag, with a few text differences here and there. Obviously I could no-follow all the filter links but it would take an enormous amount of work. The site is performing well in the search. I'm trying to decide whether if there is a risk of a penalty, if not I'm loath to do anything in case it causes other issues.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Content Strategy/Duplicate Content Issue, rel=canonical question
Hi Mozzers: We have a client who regularly pays to have high-quality content produced for their company blog. When I say 'high quality' I mean 1000 - 2000 word posts written to a technical audience by a lawyer. We recently found out that, prior to the content going on their blog, they're shipping it off to two syndication sites, both of which slap rel=canonical on them. By the time the content makes it to the blog, it has probably appeared in two other places. What are some thoughts about how 'awful' a practice this is? Of course, I'm arguing to them that the ranking of the content on their blog is bound to be suffering and that, at least, they should post to their own site first and, if at all, only post to other sites several weeks out. Does anyone have deeper thinking about this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey0 -
Mixing up languages on the same page + possible duplicate content
I have a site in English hosted under .com with English info, and then different versions of the site under subdirectories (/de/, /es/, etc.) Due to budget constraints we have only managed to translate the most important info of our product pages for the local domains. We feel however that displaying (on a clearly identified tab) the detailed product info in English may be of use for many users that can actually understand English, and may help us get more conversions to have that info. The problem is that this detailed product info is already used on the equivalent English page as well. This basically means 2 things: We are mixing languages on pages We have around 50% of duplicate content of these pages What do you think that the SEO implications of this are? By the way, proper Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions as well as implementation of href lang tag are in place.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lauraseo0 -
Duplicate content issue
Hello! We have a lot of duplicate content issues on our website. Most of the pages with these issues are dictionary pages (about 1200 of them). They're not exactly duplicate, but they contain a different word with a translation, picture and audio pronunciation (example http://anglu24.lt/zodynas/a-suitcase-lagaminas). What's the better way of solving this? We probably shouldn't disallow dictionary pages in robots.txt, right? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jpuzakov0 -
Link Building
I have to develop a strategy for link building. The SEO guy I have been speaking with has started putting links on .edu sites etc . To me - this "stinks" of manipulating the search engines - which I know we will get stung by at some point. I hope this isn't standard practice - but I don't know what the best way to improve rankings in terms of links etc. We sell health products and are starting to put out 3-4 high quality articles per week. Ideas? Kind Regards Martin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear1 -
Need suggestion for link-building
Link Building Question i want to get rank in google for www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com so have to build backlinks with lawsuit loans alt tag but main question is this have to build or gain backlinks for this domain only or one of my website sub domain www.topnotchlawsuitloans.com/lawsuit-funding-philadelphia.html on page #6 so have to build backlink for this URL ??? what are the effective strategy to gain backlinks for main page or all sub pages have to build backlinks ?? how many back-link per keyword & per page is good for website.???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JulieWhite0 -
Artist Bios on Multiple Pages: Duplicate Content or not?
I am currently working on an eComm site for a company that sells art prints. On each print's page, there is a bio about the artist followed by a couple of paragraphs about the print. My concern is that some artists have hundreds of prints on this site, and the bio is reprinted on every page,which makes sense from a usability standpoint, but I am concerned that it will trigger a duplicate content penalty from Google. Some people are trying to convince me that Google won't penalize for this content, since the intent is not to game the SERPs. However, I'm not confident that this isn't being penalized already, or that it won't be in the near future. Because it is just a section of text that is duplicated, but the rest of the text on each page is original, I can't use the rel=canonical tag. I've thought about putting each artist bio into a graphic, but that is a huge undertaking, and not the most elegant solution. Could I put the bio on a separate page with only the artist's info and then place that data on each print page using an <iframe>and then put a noindex,nofollow in the robots.txt file?</p> <p>Is there a better solution? Is this effort even necessary?</p> <p>Thoughts?</p></iframe>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbaylor0 -
Affiliate Site Duplicate Content Question
Hi Guys I have been un-able to find a definite answer to this on various forums, your views on this will be very valuable. I am doing a few Amazon affiliate sites and will be pulling in product data from Amazon via a Wordpress plugin. The plugin pulls in titles, descriptions, images, prices etc, however this presents a duplicate content issue and hence I can not publish the product pages with amazon descriptions. Due to the large number of products, it is not feasible to re-write all descriptions, but I plan re-write descriptions and titles for 50% of the products and publish then with “index, follow” attribute. However, for the other 50%, what would be the best way to handle them? Should I publish them as “noindex,follow”? **- Or is there another solution? Many thanks for your time.**
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamBuck0