PDF's - Dupe Content
-
Hi
I have some pdfs linked to from a page with little content. Hence thinking best to extract the copy from the pdf and have on-page as body text, and the pdf will still be linked too. Will this count as dupe content ?
Or is it best to use a pdf plugin so page opens pdf automatically and hence gives page content that way ?
Cheers
Dan
-
Should be different, but you would have to look at them to make sure.
-
ps - is a pdf to html coverter different from a plugin that loads the pdf as an open page when you click it ? or same thing ?
-
That is what I was going to suggest - setting up a canonical in the http header of the PDF back to the article
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139394?hl=en
As another option, you can just block access to the PDFs to keep them out of the index as well.
-
thanks Chris
yes you can canonicalise the pdf to the html (according to the comments of that article i just linked to anyway)
-
Hi Dan,
Yes PDFs are crawlable (sorry for confusion!) if you were to put it into say a .zip or .rar (or similar) it wouldn't be crawled or you could no index the link i guess. You would need to stick the PDF (download) behind some thing that couldn't be crawled. You could try rel= canonical but I've never tried it with a PDF so i'm not sure how that would go.
Hope that enlightens you a bit.
-
Thanks Chris although i thought PDFS were crawlable??: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/01/10/seo-pdfs/
Hence why im worried about dupe content if use content of pdf as body text too OR are you saying should no-follow the link to the pdf if use its content as body text because it is considered dupe content in that scenario ?
Ideally i want both - the copy on it used as body text copy on page and the pdf a linkable download, or page as embed of open pdf via a plugin.
-
What would give the user the best experience is the really question,I would;d say put it on page then if the user is lacking a plugin they can still read it, if you have it as a downloadable PDF is shouldn't be able to get crawled and thus avoiding the problem.
Hope that helps.
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
-
CTA first content next or Content first CTA next
We are a casino affiliations company, our website has a lot of the same casino offers. So is it beneficial to put the content over the casino offers, then do a CSS flex, reverse wrap, so the HTML has the page content first, but the visual of the page displays the casinos first and the content after? or just the usual i.e image the HTML as content first, and CSS makes offers come first?
On-Page Optimization | | JoelssonMedia0 -
Hello, I've heard that the outbound links I provide in my content should have a high degree of relevancy to the topic I'm writing about or they aren't really worth including. Is this true?
Hello, I've heard that relevancy of the content between the source page and the target page of outbound links in my content matters greatly. The outbound links I provide in my content should have a high degree of relevancy to the topic I'm writing about, or they aren't really worth including. Example: Don't just link to the homepage of an organization mentioned in the article, link to a page on their site that is related to the topic you are writing about. Is this true? Would including less relevant links negatively impact SEO in any way?
On-Page Optimization | | DJBKBU0 -
Should I use 'Click here' as an inbound link for my cornerstone content?
Hello Should I use 'Click here' as an inbound link for my cornerstone content? Example: For a full selection of our Facebook Event Attendee packages, please click here. OR Example: Please click the following link for a selection of our Facebook Event Attendee packages. This is my product page to help you better understand the context: LikeChimp
On-Page Optimization | | xdunningx0 -
Blog on server or embedded? Duplicate content?
Wondering what would be best in terms of SEO. Should I install some blog software actually on the website or can I just embed say a blogger.com blog? if I did that would they consider it duplicate content?
On-Page Optimization | | Superflys0 -
Duplicate content errors
I have multiple duplicate content errors in my crawl diagnostics. The problem is though that i already took care of these problems with the canonical tag but MOZ keeps saying there is a problem. For example this page http://www.letspump.dk/produkter/56-aminosyre/ has a canonical tag, but moz still says it has an error. Why is that?
On-Page Optimization | | toejklemme0 -
Would a free PDF download diminish SEO benefits of HTML content?
Dear readers, This post is a duplicate of one I just put up. Sorry about that. If you are interested in commenting or seeing other responses, please go to http://moz.com/community/q/would-a-free-pdf-download-diminish-seo-benefits-of-html-content. Thanks. Hello, I am doing SEO for a company that, as a sideline business, sells four books written by the principals; the content is directly relevant to the company's primary business focus. Book sales are a tiny fraction of our overall revenue, and we don't expect that to change, although we will continue to sell the books. In addition to selling them, we have decided to convert the books to HTML and post them for free on our website (laid out by chapter and section). The hope is that this will result in goodwill, links, traffic, and ultimately improved search rankings. My question: Would offering free PDF downloads of the books (in addition to posting the HTML content) diminish the SEO benefits of the HTML content? If we don't offer the PDF option, people would have to visit our site to read the content (unless they bought a hard copy). If visitors were able to download a free PDF, they wouldn't need to return to our site to read it. If our corporate clients (nearly all of our clients are corporations) could download a PDF, they could then post it on an intranet instead of posting a link to our site. In general, do you think a visitor would be less likely to link to our site if he or she were able to download the PDF? Or would the appeal of the PDF option make it more likely that people would visit and link to the site? Also, if we offer the PDF option, are there any SEO issues related to duplicate content? Finally, if we did offer the free PDF download, would you recommend that we ask for an email address before giving the PDF? Thank you very much!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
My company's product is referred to by two different names (SVN and Subversion). When cleaning up our Title tags, is it OK to use either name to keep the title tags around 70 characters?
I am cleaning up title tags that are too long or not correct. In our title tag we reference our product (a version of OSS source code). This product is often referred to as both SVN or Subversion. When writing Title tags is it OK to use one or the other depending on the length of the Title Tag? For instance: Contact Us | Free SVN & Git Hosting | Bug & Issue tracking | CloudForge vs **About CloudForge | Free Subversion & Git Hosting | Bug Tracking ** | |
On-Page Optimization | | CollabNet0 -
Is there any benefit in on-site duplicate content?
I have about 50 internal pages on my site that I want to add a "Do it yourself tutorial" to in an effort to build the quality of the pages. Is this going to de-value the content if I put it on all 50 pages? It's difficult to write similar content 50 different ways.
On-Page Optimization | | BradBorst0