undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. PDF for link building - avoiding duplicate content

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

PDF for link building - avoiding duplicate content

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
4
14
3.1k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • BobGW
    BobGW last edited by Feb 12, 2013, 5:21 PM

    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.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Marcus_Miller
      Marcus_Miller @BobGW last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 8:21 PM Feb 14, 2013, 8:21 PM

      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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BobGW
        BobGW @BobGW last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 4:12 PM Feb 14, 2013, 4:12 PM

        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?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Marcus_Miller
          Marcus_Miller @BobGW last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 12:56 PM Feb 14, 2013, 12:56 PM

          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>)

          [The Noob Guide to Online Marketing - Infographic](<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

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BobGW
            BobGW @Marcus_Miller last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 12:43 PM Feb 14, 2013, 12:43 PM

            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

            Marcus_Miller BobGW 3 Replies Last reply Feb 14, 2013, 8:21 PM Reply Quote 0
            • Marcus_Miller
              Marcus_Miller last edited by Feb 16, 2013, 9:02 PM Feb 14, 2013, 8:55 AM

              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

              BobGW 1 Reply Last reply Feb 14, 2013, 12:43 PM Reply Quote 2
              • BobGW
                BobGW @BobGW last edited by Feb 13, 2013, 4:15 AM Feb 13, 2013, 4:15 AM

                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:>

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ThompsonPaul
                  ThompsonPaul @BobGW last edited by Feb 13, 2013, 3:20 AM Feb 13, 2013, 3:20 AM

                  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-seos

                  Just 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

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • BobGW
                    BobGW @BobGW last edited by Feb 13, 2013, 3:59 AM Feb 13, 2013, 2:48 AM

                    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:>

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • BobGW
                      BobGW @BobGW last edited by Feb 12, 2013, 6:22 PM Feb 12, 2013, 6:22 PM

                      How do I know if I can do an HTTP header request? I'm using shared hosting through hostgator.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • DoRM
                        DoRM @BobGW last edited by Feb 12, 2013, 6:11 PM Feb 12, 2013, 6:11 PM

                        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.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • DoRM
                          DoRM @BobGW last edited by Feb 12, 2013, 6:11 PM Feb 12, 2013, 6:11 PM

                          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.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • BobGW
                            BobGW @DoRM last edited by Feb 12, 2013, 5:59 PM Feb 12, 2013, 5:59 PM

                            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?

                            DoRM BobGW ThompsonPaul 6 Replies Last reply Feb 13, 2013, 4:15 AM Reply Quote 0
                            • DoRM
                              DoRM last edited by Feb 16, 2013, 9:02 PM Feb 12, 2013, 5:38 PM

                              Indicate the canonical version of a URL by responding with the Link rel="canonical" HTTP header. Addingrel="canonical" to the head 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 the Link 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

                              BobGW 1 Reply Last reply Feb 12, 2013, 5:59 PM Reply Quote 1
                              • 1 / 1
                              1 out of 14
                              • First post
                                1/14
                                Last post

                              Got a burning SEO question?

                              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                              Start my free trial


                              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.

                              • See all categories

                              Related Questions

                              • Kingalan1

                                Reasonable Cost for Link Building Service

                                We need about 5-10 high quality links to our website created every month. We need the link targets researched and outreach done to these sites. The sites most be legitimate and high quality; decent domain authority, real sites, not phony low quality sites. Sites that would show traffic in similarweb.com with decent metrics. We absolutely want to avoid any link building schemes that could get us penalized. I have been told that such a project would take a qualified SEO about 8-10 hours per months (more during the additional month of research, less afterward). As such, what is a reasonable cost for these 5-10 links per month? $300, $500, $700, more? I only want to work with a highly experienced SEO, native english speaker with extensive experience. What is fair? I don't want to overpay or to under pay. Thanks, Alan

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 17, 2018, 9:56 AM | Kingalan1
                                0
                              • BeckyKey

                                SEM Rush & Duplicate content

                                Hi SEMRush is flagging these pages as having duplicate content, but we have rel = next etc implemented: https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott?page=2 Or is it being flagged as they're just really similar pages?

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 31, 2018, 12:39 PM | BeckyKey
                                0
                              • nchlondon

                                Directory with Duplicate content? what to do?

                                Moz keeps finding loads of pages with duplicate content on my website. The problem is its a directory page to different locations. E.g if we were a clothes shop we would be listing our locations: www.sitename.com/locations/london www.sitename.com/locations/rome www.sitename.com/locations/germany The content on these pages is all the same, except for an embedded google map that shows the location of the place. The problem is that google thinks all these pages are duplicated content. Should i set a canonical link on every single page saying that www.sitename.com/locations/london is the main page? I don't know if i can use canonical links because the page content isn't identical because of the embedded map. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 30, 2016, 8:16 AM | nchlondon
                                0
                              • allianzireland

                                Case Sensitive URLs, Duplicate Content & Link Rel Canonical

                                I have a site where URLs are case sensitive. In some cases the lowercase URL is being indexed and in others the mixed case URL is being indexed. This is leading to duplicate content issues on the site. The site is using link rel canonical to specify a preferred URL in some cases however there is no consistency whether the URLs are lowercase or mixed case. On some pages the link rel canonical tag points to the lowercase URL, on others it points to the mixed case URL. Ideally I'd like to update all link rel canonical tags and internal links throughout the site to use the lowercase URL however I'm apprehensive! My question is as follows: If I where to specify the lowercase URL across the site in addition to updating internal links to use lowercase URLs, could this have a negative impact where the mixed case URL is the one currently indexed? Hope this makes sense! Dave

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 25, 2015, 2:28 PM | allianzireland
                                0
                              • Mark_Ch

                                URL Value: Menu Links vs Body Content Links

                                Hi All, I'm a little confused. I have read a number of articles from authority sites that give mixed signals over the importance of menu links vs body content links. It is suggested that whilst all menu links spread link juice equally, Google does not see them as favourably. Inserting a link within the body will add more link juice value to the desired page. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Mark

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 20, 2014, 12:45 PM | Mark_Ch
                                0
                              • deskstudio

                                How to Remove Joomla Canonical and Duplicate Page Content

                                I've  attempted to follow advice from the Q&A section. Currently on the site www.cherrycreekspine.com, I've edited the .htaccess file to help with 301s - all pages redirect to www.cherrycreekspine.com. Secondly, I'd added the canonical statement in the header of the web pages. I have cut the Duplicate Page Content in half ... now  I have a remaining 40 pages to fix up. This is my practice site to try and understand what SEOmoz can do for me. I've looked at some of your videos on Youtube ... I feel like I'm scrambling around to the Q&A and the internet to understand this product. I'm reading the beginners guide.... any other resources would be helpful.

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 13, 2012, 4:06 AM | deskstudio
                                0
                              • YNWA

                                Duplicate Content on Press Release?

                                Hi, We recently held a charity night in store. And had a few local celebs turn up etc... We created a press release to send out to various media outlets, within the press release were hyperlinks to our site and links on certain keywords to specific brands on our site. My question is, should we be sending a different press release to each outlet to stop the duplicate content thing, or is sending the same release out to everyone ok? We will be sending approx 20 of these out, some going online and some not. So far had one local paper website, a massive football website and a local magazine site. All pretty much same content and a few pics. Any help, hints or tips on how to go about this if I am going to be sending out to a load of other sites/blogs? Cheers

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 14, 2012, 9:09 AM | YNWA
                                0
                              • joseph.chambers

                                Duplicate Content | eBay

                                My client is generating templates for his eBay template based on content he has on his eCommerce platform. I'm 100% sure this will cause duplicate content issues. My question is this.. and I'm not sure where eBay policy stands with this but adding the canonical tag to the template.. will this work if it's coming from a different page i.e. eBay? Update: I'm not finding any information regarding this on the eBay policy's: http://ocs.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CustomerSupport&action=0&searchstring=canonical So it does look like I can have rel="canonical" tag in custom eBay templates but I'm concern this can be considered: "cheating" since rel="canonical is actually a 301 but as this says: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html it's legitimately duplicate content. The question is now: should I add it or not? UPDATE seems eBay templates are embedded in a iframe but the snap shot on google actually shows the template. This makes me wonder how they are handling iframes now. looking at http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/search-engine-simulator.shtml does shows the content inside the iframe. Interesting. Anyone else have feedback?

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 9, 2014, 11:02 AM | joseph.chambers
                                1

                              Get started with Moz Pro!

                              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                              Start my free trial
                              Products
                              • Moz Pro
                              • Moz Local
                              • Moz API
                              • Moz Data
                              • STAT
                              • Product Updates
                              Moz Solutions
                              • SMB Solutions
                              • Agency Solutions
                              • Enterprise Solutions
                              Free SEO Tools
                              • Domain Authority Checker
                              • Link Explorer
                              • Keyword Explorer
                              • Competitive Research
                              • Brand Authority Checker
                              • Local Citation Checker
                              • MozBar Extension
                              • MozCast
                              Resources
                              • Blog
                              • SEO Learning Center
                              • Help Hub
                              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                              • How-to Guides
                              • Moz Academy
                              • API Docs
                              About Moz
                              • About
                              • Team
                              • Careers
                              • Contact
                              Why Moz
                              • Case Studies
                              • Testimonials
                              Get Involved
                              • Become an Affiliate
                              • MozCon
                              • Webinars
                              • Practical Marketer Series
                              • MozPod
                              Connect with us

                              Contact the Help team

                              Join our newsletter
                              Moz logo
                              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                              • Accessibility
                              • Terms of Use
                              • Privacy

                              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.