PDFs and webpages
-
If a website provides PDF versions of the page as a download option, should the PDF be no-indexed in your opinion?
We have to offer PDF versions of the webpage as our customers want them, they are a group who will download/print the pdfs. I thought of leaving the pdfs alone as they site in a subdomain but the more I think about it, I should probably noindex them. My reasons
- They site in a subdomain, if users have linked to them, my main domain isn't getting the rank juice
- Duplication issues, they might be affecting the rank of the existing webpages
- I can't track the PDF as they are in a subdomain, I can see event clicks to them from the main site though
On the flipside
- I could lose out on the traffic the pdfs bring when a user loads it from an organic search and any link existing on the pdf
What are your experiences?
-
Cool. It's advisable to add canonical HTTP headers to the PDFs too, if you can.
-
Thanks Alex,
I do have canonical tags on the webpages to ensure they are seen as the main one. I'll look into tracking subdomains.
-
Google now class subdomains pretty much as part of your main domain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk - so you will be getting some of that rank juice.
I'd think that the major search engines wouldn't have a problem knowing that an HTML version of a page is preferred over a PDF. However, you can use canonical HTTP headers to make sure there are no problems with duplicate content: http://moz.com/blog/how-to-advanced-relcanonical-http-headers
If you use Google Analytics you will be able to track the subdomain. You can do it as part of your existing profile or by setting up a separate one: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSite (ensure this is the version of Analytics you have installed).
There's a short guide here on getting more data about PDFs through Google Analytics: http://moz.com/ugc/how-to-track-pdf-traffic-links-in-google-analytics-open-site-explorer
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
-
Chrome 79 Update and PDFs
I've been taking precautions for the Chrome 79 and 80 updates that will be more strict about serving mixed content. Quick question: will this impact http:// PDFs on https:// pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SearchStan0 -
DO outbound links to manufacture specs, pdfs help or hurt SEO?
I am creating an e-commerce site. All the products have product certification documents/images, PDF docs for instructions, manufacture specs, etc. Should I host all this content or simply link to the original documents and content? What is the best for SEO? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamesmcd030 -
Creating Redirect Maps -To include PDFs or Not to include PDFs?
When creating a redirect map for a site re-build or domain change, it is necessary to include .PDFs or any other non-HTML URLs? Do PDFs even carry "seo juice" over? When switching CMS, does it even matter to include them? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | emilydavidson0 -
Should I change my product infomation (PDF attatchments) into additional webpages with links ?
Hello All, On our eCommerce site some products have additional information which we currently show via a PDF link next to the product. I am thinking, is it more beneficial from an SEO point of view , If I was to put this additional pdf information to a webpage and have a link going from the product to this . From what I read, google cannot read contents of pdfs so if I was to have this as webpage via a link , then the product page would get more keywords and strength around it which would help improve it's seo etc. Just wondered if this is the best way forward or not ? thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Google isn't seeing the content but it is still indexing the webpage
When I fetch my website page using GWT this is what I receive. HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jacobfy
X-Pantheon-Styx-Hostname: styx1560bba9.chios.panth.io
server: nginx
content-type: text/html
location: https://www.inscopix.com/
x-pantheon-endpoint: 4ac0249e-9a7a-4fd6-81fc-a7170812c4d6
Cache-Control: public, max-age=86400
Content-Length: 0
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:29:38 GMT
X-Varnish: 2640682369 2640432361
Age: 326
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive What I used to get is this: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:00:24 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.23 (Amazon)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.18
Expires: Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT
Last-Modified: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:00:24 +0000
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
ETag: "1365696024"
Content-Language: en
Link: ; rel="canonical",; rel="shortlink"
X-Generator: Drupal 7 (http://drupal.org)
Connection: close
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"
xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
xmlns:sioc="http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#"
xmlns:sioct="http://rdfs.org/sioc/types#"
xmlns:skos="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#"> <title>Inscopix | In vivo rodent brain imaging</title>0 -
Can Google index PDFs with flash?
Does anyone know if Google can index PDF with Flash embedded? I would assume that the regular flash recommendations are still valid, even when embedded in another document. I would assume there is a list of the filetype and version which Google can index with the search appliance, but was not able to find any. Does anyone have a link or a list?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andreas.wpv0 -
What to do with bad webpage
Hello everyone, I have a page in my website that has a terrible link profile (95% exact match keyword links.) What is the best thing to do with this page? It provides no value, and if anything it is hurting me. Should I just delete the page, 301 it to an obscure page or something else? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mjstout0 -
Convert keyword rich PDFs to web pages (text & images)
SteriPEN is a portable water purifier that kills viruses, protozoa, e-coli, etc. Because of the technical and safety requirements nature of the product, our website has much documentation of testing, organisms affected, and more. These are in pdf form and can often be found through google search (and through links on specific pages). Because of the keyword-richness of these documents pertaining to microbes SteriPEN kills, etc. does it make sense to convert these pdf's into html text and images? Then I was thinking perhaps writing a blog post AND generating key links on important landing pages to these documents (as html). Removing pdfs may be harmful? Not a clue as to the cost/benefit.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Timmmmy0