13 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
13 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Does Google Crawl PDF Documents?

by ActionToCash
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello Warriors,

Does anyone know if the Google spider crawls the text of pdf's which I provide for download on my website?

I am considering promoting a product that would match the demographics of visitors to my site, but the product is unrelated to the SEO theme of the rest of the site. So I am considering promoting this secondary product in a PDF document to ensure Google doesn't crawl the information & get confused about the theme of my site and reduce my rankings as a result.

Thanks for your feedback!

Randall
#crawl #documents #google #pdf
  • Profile picture of the author darrenlc
    If there is a link on your site or in the sitemap to the pdf's it will probably crawl them. Maybe you could put them on a pdf sharing site instead and just send the visitors there instead. Personally I wouldn't worry too much about the odd page that is off topic.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8346355].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author ActionToCash
      Thanks for the reply.

      One other idea I had was to create my ad as an image that I save in PDF format instead of providing my message using text.

      Randall
      Signature

      Happy Marketing!!!

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8348210].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    Unless the pdf is in googledocs, i doubt Google would spider a pdf, and then ocr it thus avoiding the non indexed text in the image to be suddenly made available.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8348287].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Kael41 View Post

      Unless the pdf is in googledocs, i doubt Google would spider a pdf, and then ocr it thus avoiding the non indexed text in the image to be suddenly made available.
      Google will crawl any pdf If it's not blocked by a server/host.

      filetype:pdf
      • Google will also cache a pdf.
      • Google also has stated they treat a pdf like a regular web page.
        Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.
      • Google will also give a pdf page rank (PR1).
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8348491].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author squadron
    Originally Posted by ActionToCash View Post

    Hello Warriors,

    Does anyone know if the Google spider crawls the text of pdf's which I provide for download on my website?

    ...
    Yes, Google does crawl and index text in PDFs, assuming the text was done in some sort of word processor rather than just text in an image.

    Here's a nice little pdf search engine powered by Google. - http://www.pdfsearchengine.org/
    Signature
    2020 - Another Year of Bitcoin

    Wordpress Help
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8348377].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Marketaire
    Google will definitely find the text and any links within the pdf. If you don't want it indexed I'd just throw it elsewhere and adjust your robots.txt as appropriate.

    BP
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8348453].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author seoace
    Yes, they do index and crawl pdf pages. There's a whole separate section in their search engine to look for pdf files as well.
    Signature
    Who else needs a SEO Client Dashboard for their SEO services ?
    Let your clients monitor their SEO campaigns (Rankings, Backlinks and Work Done)
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8349394].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author andishm
    Does anyone know if the Google spider crawls the text of pdf's which I provide for download on my website?
    Yes, I believe. Even google many times crawl text of flash files too...
    Signature
    Backup.Countryâ„¢ - Automated cloud backups for PC, Laptop & Servers
    Logon to https://backup.country/
    31% Off Coupon code: WORLDBACKUPDAY
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8349521].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Lokahi
    Can you post the link to the pdf on a page that specifically addresses the content of the ebook? That would cushion the difference between the content of your site and the pdf's content.
    Signature
    Windows10Geek.com
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8352432].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ActionToCash
    Wow - I guess that answers that lol.. Looks like the Big G leave's no stone unturned. Well I think I am just going to market it separately after I've thought about it anyway so I keep the focus of the site what it should be. Instead of attempting the low result 'everything to everyone' concept, I think I need to keep my site on laser focused track, although it would have been nice to tap some of my visitors for the other stuff.

    Regardless, I thank everyone for their responses. It's incredible just how encompassing Google is. I guess that's why they're #1.

    Kind regards to all!

    Randall
    Signature

    Happy Marketing!!!

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8352435].message }}

Trending Topics