Do PDF's provide any SEO impact?

[denvercardonations]

There are so many PDF's online indexed, some image based, some text based, and some a mix of both with some html markup. Do any of these types of files provide an SEO boost at all if you were an author and had your URL inside among your authored writing?

 

[ericplotz1]

I've personally never used them on a clients site BUT I am using them on churn and burns with SER. THey seem to be working fine and getting indexed. Anything that can be indexed with a link should prove to have some value. As far as the impact, I'm not sure as I just blast away.

 

[khassani]

Hi,

Although PDF files can be indexed, I don't think they can give any boost in SEO in comparison with a normal HTML page.

Check out this interesting resource [URLnf="http://searchengineland.com/are-pdfs-optimal-for-seo-182076"]here[/URLnf]


All the best!

 

[PTTed]

There are so many PDF's online indexed, some image based, some text based, and some a mix of both with some html markup. Do any of these types of files provide an SEO boost at all if you were an author and had your URL inside among your authored writing?

According to my understanding - links inside of PDF files are treated the same as links on a regular HTML page. So yes they flow PageRank.

PDF files themselves can acquire PageRank also and can get ranked in the search results.

Are you better off using putting content into a PDF file and trying to get that ranked instead of a regular HTML page - no I don't think so.

Are you better off putting your inbound links inside a PDF file instead of a regular HTML page - possibly - depends on where the link was going to be located on the HTML page and where the link was going to be located inside the PDF. The fact that it is a PDF makes no difference. But the link positioning could make a difference depending on how much link juice you need for the page you are trying to get ranked.

 

[MrT]

Document sharing sites have always been used for this purpose as part of a tiered linking strategy. I think the majority of the value in it now is more as a parasite property instead of being used for linking value.

This shouldn't be an either/or proposition though. You don't have to decide whether you should link from a site like Scribd or a contextual link somewhere else. Do both! But typically the real value is in using these as parasite properties.

If you're talking about a PDF by itself on your own domain, if you're going to have a link in there to benefit the reader and point to other resources, there's no reason NOT to do it.

 

[denvercardonations]

A parasite property, meaning to gobble up positions within the search results?

 

[mackrodd]

Pdf works and Gives a real boost in Search engine indexing, google loves sharing sites such slideshare.net

 

[geeksremote24-7]

No, PDF submission is not an important technique to increase website ranking.

 

[denvercardonations]

Do the URLs get indexed, provide small contextual backlinks? Someone mentioned slideshare, I am going to try and see if Google indexes from there. Are there other places that anyone knows fore sure Google will index a pdf? Off of your own server, and prefferably not auto delete like docdroid, I like the batch upload, bit I have thousands of meeting pdfs, I dont want to keep uploading. They are very tiny, just lots of them.

 

[Lee06]

PDF are a good element if you want to share knowledge or informations. You can add a link into your PDF file, then the readers will know your website. But the backlink into PDF does not have direct effect on SEO. You can share your PDF on many plateforms, such as SlideShare.