Blogs in PDF format- Good or Bad ?

Do you mean keep the html content and have the PDF as well or replace the content with PDFs?

If you have both the HTML and PDF version then Google has always suggested that only one version of the page is served to the search engines to avoid such duplication issues occurring. If the same content was going to be used on multiple pages in the HTML format then the solution would be to use the 'rel=canonical' tag to nominate one version for indexation. The same applies to duplication between HTML and PDF versions of content. The canonical version can be specified in the HTML coding of the webpage or in the HTTP header with the PDF file source. A preferred version for indexation can also be made by including the URL address in the Sitemap.

PDF files can rank highly in the search engine results pages as we have seen this many times before but its not ideal. The optimisation process for a PDF file is almost like scaling down the process of optimisation for an entire website. Excellent content in a PDF file with a diverse and authoritative link portfolio has as much chance at ranking highly as a well optimised web page. However you do risk having a usability issue. If a user opens a PDF, then they may read that blog post and just exit because you cannot see the rest of the website menu layout and content.

I suppose you need to find out, what is the advantage of having the PDF version or is it just to have as a downloadable version with the html post. If so then it's a good idea but make sure duplicate issues are arranged before putting it live.

I hope this helps answer your question and if so please send over a thanks, it will be much appreciated :p

Thanks for the piece of advice SOD. : )

The client is adding an entire new blog section and so there is no issue of duplicacy in html format. No similar content in other format present on the site.

I agree with you that it won't be an excellent measure in terms of user interface. But what also bothers me most is if it'll influence my the seo dynamics.
Even after optimizing each pdf will it effect my overall loading speed too ?

Sherlyne,

I see some really big problems with constructing a blog in this way. The first is that readers will not be able to comment on the content like they would on an HTML blog. The second is that it will be incredibly time consuming and difficult to change the content if need be. The third is that it will be difficult to track with any kind of analytics platform. You cannot embed tracking code in a PDF and therefore metrics like time one site, bounce rates, what links are clicked, etc are all lost.

You will not have too much of an issue ranking a PDF but all these other things are next to impossible to do in this format.

Hope that helps,

Shawn

Why would anyone convert an entire blog into PDFs? Must be a small site?