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.
Tracking PDF downloads from SERP clicks
-
For the longest time, our company policy has always been to put PDFs in a secure folder (hence they are not indexed and do not appear in search results). After evaluating this strategy, there has been clamor in recent months to allow Google to index our whitepapers.
My question: Once PDFs start appearing in search results, what is the best way to start tracking clicks due to these "downloads"?
-
To address the main question (sorry we got a bit off track) - you can set up virtual page-views which fire when links to these PDF URLs are clicked. In some browsers this will trigger a download, in other browsers (like Chrome, which contains a built-in PDF viewer) - unless the site has been coded a certain way, a download may not actually even occur. The PDF may simply open in a new tab, and render as a web page with a full URL
As such I prefer to use virtual page-views piped to Google Analytics when the links to these documents are clicked, to track their views / downloads (which under normal circumstances, you can't distinguish between those two view types). Even when a PDF is being viewed 'as' a page on your site in a new tab, remember that PDF documents don't support the GA tracking script (so views to those PDF URLs get 'lost' from GA). You need to use virtual page-views, to remedy that
-
You can find lots more discussion of pdf optimization here.
-
I forgot to address the tracking question... We used to get server logs and run them through WeblogExpert. You can set it up to track pdf impressions.
We don't do that any more because we turned off server logs because we felt it might take us out of GDPR compliance.
-
This has actually significantly changed my views on PDF optimisation. I didn't know that they held so much optimisation potential. I have always agreed with allowing them to index, but pushed to have them replaced with pages (which contain optional links / buttons to download the original PDF, for users who prefer that)
The sticking point is usually budget. Many clients can't afford the required redesign efforts, so it's good to know that PDFs actually hold (within their native format) some optimisation potential. Thank you EGOL
-
PDFs can pull in tons of traffic if they have high quality content. I agree with allowing Google to index them.
PDFs can be optimized by editing their properties. Editing the document title in properties has the optimization power of a <title>tag.</p> <p>It is probably worth the effort to look at the PDFs and plan how you can use them to drive traffic (through links) to relevant pages of your website. Then if the PDFs get links, some of that power will pass through to the rest of your site. Breadcrumbs in PDFs will weave them into your website architecture.</p> <p>You can also sell ad space in the PDFs or place your own ads in there. You can also place "buy buttons" in PDFs. </p> <p>There are lots of things that can be done with PDFs that most people have not thought of. </p></title>
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
-
Change Phone Number Based on Traffic Source + Ping URL for Call Tracking Number
Hi Everyone, Is there a tool that can change the phone number on a web page based on the visitor source (i.e., direct, organic, paid, etc.)? I'd like to implement a solution like this with different call tracking numbers based on the visitor source. We use the Google suite for our analytics (GA, GTM, Google Data Studio, Google Optimize is also an option as well). - Also, is there a good call tracking service that will ping a URL each time the phone number is called so that we can track these calls as events in GA? The majority of our visitors use a desktop PC and dial in the number on the screen rather than clicking (tapping) on it from a mobile device. Thanks, Andy
Reporting & Analytics | | AndyRCWRCM0 -
If website users don't accept GDPR cookie consent, does that prevent GA-GTM from tracking pageviews and any traffic from that user that would cause significant traffic decreases?
I've been doing a lot research on GDPR impact and implementation with GTM-GA for clients, but it's been 12 months since GDPR has gone live I haven't found anything on how GA traffic has been impacted if users don't accept cookie consent. However, I'm personally seeing GA accounts taking huge losses in traffic since implementing GDPR cookie solutions (because GTM/GA tags aren't firing until cookies are accepted). Is it common for websites to see significant decreases in traffic due to too many users not accepting cookie consent? Are there alternative solutions to avoid traffic loss like that and still maintain GDPR compliance? It seems to me that the industry underestimated how many people won't accept cookie consent. Most of the documentation and articles around GDPR's start (May 2018) didn't foresee or cover that aspect properly, everything seems to be technically focused with the assumption that if implemented properly most people would accept cookie consent, but I'm personally not seeing that trend and it's destroying GA data (lost traffic, minimal source attribution, inaccurate behavior data, etc). Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | Kickboard2 -
Impressions clicks and traffic drop
Hello,
Reporting & Analytics | | SharonEKG
So something weird is going on, i run a few websites for clients, few different CMS. there has been a constant increase in traffic and ranking on one wordpress website and now the squarespace website is climbing up in rankings in the past few months. both has GTM installed for months, which has been optimized regularly.
for the wordpress website, in the past 2 weeks, starting June 4th, on google search console the clicks and impressions has started going down to the point that i lost 90% of clicks and impressions and traffic on analytics has started dropping a few days later, now at about 60% less traffic. for the Squarespace website, exactly the same thing, started June 7th and drop in clicks/impressions (though ranking increase) and then traffic drop. checked both GTM for recent changes incase of wrong code implement, no changes, no new major issues.
different hostings different CMS, no link between them. i just cant put my finger what is going on. anyone got any idea what is going on?0 -
Impression and click discrepancies in Search Console when filtering by date
I recently filtered query information by week and day. The impression and click totals were different depending on whether I looked at totals by a full weeks or by day. So for example, the impression and click totals when I choose a date range of monday-sunday are different when I look at impressions and clicks that same week by day and then add up the click and impression numbers to get a weekly total. At first i was expecting a slight difference since I know the data is heavily sampled but the totals were very different. Any explanations for this? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | znotes0 -
Tracking time spent on a section of a website in Google Analytics
Hi, I've been asked by a client to track time spent or number of pages visited on a specific section of their website using Google Analytics but can't see how to do this. For example, they have a "golf" section within their site and want to measure how many people either visit 5 page or more within the golf section or spend at least 6 minutes browsing the various golf section pages. Can anyone advise how if this can be done, and if so, how I go about it. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | geckonm0 -
Does analytics track an order two times by refresh on the confirmation-page?
Hi there,
Reporting & Analytics | | Webdannmark
I have a quick question. Does Google analytics track an order two times, if the user buys a product, see the confirmation page and then click refresh/click or back and forward again?
The order/tracking data must be the same, but i guess the tracking code runs for every refresh and therefore tracks the order two times in Analytics or does analytics know that it is the same order? Someone that can clearify this?Thanks! Regards
Kasper0 -
What is best practice for tracking RSS feed subscribers
What is the most accurate/achievable way of tracking data about subscribers to your RSS feed through Google Analytics? With standard WordPress sites, we place the RSS link to Feedburner so we could track statistics. However it wouldn't track the way that I use it. I use Pulse on an Android Tablet to read my feeds offline on the bus each morning. At home, Pulse automatically downloads the latest feeds wirelessly overnight. So then I can read them without a connection. The obvious downside for my reading experience is that I only get what is contained in the feeds. If the company only includes an excerpt, it's too annoying to read the teaser and be unable to connect and follow a link. So I only subscribe to feeds that contain the full post. Yeah to seomoz, aimclear, SEL, adwordsblog. I dont subscribe to bruceclays blog, much as i'd like to, because it doesn't contain the full feed. That's probably deliberate on their part, because I have to consciously visit their blog on my desktop at work, to see the whole post. The other problem with say Pulse, is how it locates the feed. I typed in the URL, and Pulse subscribed me. I assume that Pulse simply looked for the domain.com/feed URL and added that, rather than look for feeds2.feedburner.com/domain. I looked at Feedburner stats and they didn't go up for 2 days, so basically it didn't track me. Would it be as simple as using the Google URL builder to add parameters to each post in the RSS feed? Eg utm_source=feedreader, utm_medium=rss, utm_campaign=tracking. But that still wouldn't track offline users. I assume that most people are also not going to paste the Feedburner URL into their FeedReader, but would let the platform auto-detect the feed. Any suggestions?
Reporting & Analytics | | ozgeekmum1 -
Tracking pdf downloads
hello, I have a site with 100's of pdf's for download and I would like to track how many people are downloading these, does anyone have a simple solution for this? Is there anyway I can do this in Google Analytics using one piece of code, thanks...
Reporting & Analytics | | Socialdude0