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.
Should I add PDF manuals to my product pages?
-
Hello.
A lot of the products I sell on my e-commerce site are very technical. I decided to add PDF data sheets, manuals etc on each of the product pages to improve the customer experience. Now I am not sure if it was the best thing to do. I have noticed a couple of times that the PDF is out ranking the product page in the SERP. For a few products, the PDF ranks but the product page doesn't. Anyone got any ideas?
-
I am struggling with the rel="canonical". If each product had its own product PDF then it would be easy to use the rel="canonical". However, some of the PDF manuals cover somewhere between 200-300 products. The only difference between some of the products is the physical size (like televisions i.e. 32" vs 37") so the same manual covers all the products within that range. I am guessing using the same PDF manual for so many products is a duplicate content issue, but sadly they are really useful for users. Maybe I could put all the pdfs on the product category pages. That said the MOZ tools are showing that we only have 200 duplicate pages out of 250,000, which I think is good.
I agree with Mike, a summary of the PDF, FAQs and how to guides would be an advantage. I've already started adding this information for some of the more popular products but we don't have enough people to write content for every product. A smaller site would be a lot easier.
Anyone got any ideas?
@Dave - thanks mate
-
Keep in mind that many shopping carts have "buy buttons" and "purchase links" that can be embedded in .pdf documents and will deliver the visitor (and the item) into the shopping cart when clicked.
-
As an irrelevant aside - love that avatar David.
-
I agree with Mike here.
While technically the canonical might do what you want (kind of) this isn't what it's intended for. Another side to that coin is, if you funnel the strength to the product page from the PDF but the product page doesn't have the content that the PDF was ranking for then you still won't get the rankings on the product page and on top of that, you'll lose them on the PDFs.
-
Whoa! Those are big PDFs and a lot of products.
If that is the case then I think the only way you could get people to link to your actual webpages vs the PDFs would be to offer them 1) a summary of the PDF 2) frequently asked questions about the product 3) how-tos not covered in the PDFs or something.
As far as the canonical idea, that is not really what that tag is used for according to Google -
"Must the content on a set of pages be similar to the content on the canonical version?Yes. The rel="canonical" attribute should be used only to specify the preferred version of many pages with identical content (although minor differences, such as sort order, are okay).
For instance, if a site has a set of pages for the same model of dance shoe, each varying only by the color of the shoe pictured, it may make sense to set the page highlighting the most popular color as the canonical version so that Google may be more likely to show that page in search results. However, rel="canonical" would not be appropriate if that same site simply wanted a gel insole page to rank higher than the shoe page."
Mike
-
Thanks for advice. In the main, we've tried to add content from the PDF into the product pages but the PDFs are usually 150 pages long and we've got 250,000 products online. I will try the canonical idea and see what happens. Cheers for all the answers.
-
Mike - you took the words right out of my mouth and I'm glad I read the replies before answering.
The question shouldn't be, "should I remove the PDFs?" it should be, "What about my PDFs are ranking higher and how do I move that to my product pages?"
-
There are a couple of things you can do that will help your product pages rank better over your pdf pages. You can do a canonical from the pdf to the product page it is referencing, giving your product page the ranking value. You can incorporate your pdf into text (html) on your product page, giving your product page additional, relevant content, thus boasting ranking.
-
Hi David,
This typically happens when your PDFs are full of content people want. I have seen this personally with a previous company I worked with and their spec sheets (it was for a software copy). This is good and bad - good people find your content awesome and are linking to it - bad that your PDFs are ranking vs your pages.
Solution - make your pages better. You could potentially take the content from your PDFs and make a page - this in theory should still compel people to link to you. If your PDFs are massive in size, you could consider condense the contents into a webpage that contains FAQs, a summary of the information, etc.
This isn't a bad problem to have. If you can't beat them, join them - optimize your PDFs for search.
Hope this helps.
Mike
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
-
FAQ page structure
I have read in other discussions that having all questions on an FAQ page is the way to go and then if the question has an answer worthy of its own page, you should abbreviate the answer and link to the page with more content. My question is when using some templates in WP, they have a little + button you can click and it reveal the answer to the question. Does this hurt SEO versus having all text visible and then using headers/subheaders? An example of the + button https://fyrfyret.dk/faq/
On-Page Optimization | | OrlandSEO1 -
Page Title Length
Hi Gurus, I understand that it is a good practice is to use 50-60 characters for the a page title length. Google appends my brand name to the end of each title (15 characters including spaces) it index. Do I need to count what google adds as part of the maximum recommended length? i.e.
On-Page Optimization | | SunnyMay
is the maximum 50-60 characters + the 15 characters brand name Google adds to the end of the title or 50-60 including the addition? Many thanks!
Lev0 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A2 -
Listing all services on one page vs separate pages per service
My company offers several generalized categories with more specific services underneath each category. Currently the way it's structured is if you click "Voice" you get a full description of each voice service we offer. I have a feeling this is shooting us in the foot. Would it be better to have a general overview of the services we offer on the "Voice" page that then links to the specified service? The blurb about the service on the overview page would be unique, not taken from the actual specific service's page.
On-Page Optimization | | AMATechTel0 -
Home page and category page target same keyword
Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian
On-Page Optimization | | tprg0 -
Should I watermark my product images
I am in the process of creating new images for my products to use on my website. Are there any advantages or disadvantages of watermarking each image? Is there an SEO impact good or bad? I am aware that filename and Alt tags are important, but am unsure if google dislikes watermarked images.
On-Page Optimization | | BipSum1 -
Different page for each product colour?
Hi Guys, I've just read an ecommerce article that suggests it's a good idea to have a different page for each colour that the product comes in. However surely this will mean duplicate content? What are your thoughts? Have you put this tactic into motion and how did it go? Thanks, Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Sparkstone0 -
Related products - random products or static
Hello, I was curious about where to get related products from. Currently I just grab some random products from the same category. Would there be any benefit to always linking to the same related products on a product page? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | nux0