Web Design Based on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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• Creating PDF versions of content

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  Marc Buyens    Premium Member

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  Creating PDF versions of content

  I have two small websites where I publish more or less on a monthly basis a 2-3 page article. Since reading this in a browser is not always the most perfect thing, I have CSS in place that will allow you to print a clean copy of the article (without all the sidebars and other stuff that clutter the screen). If you have Adobe or something similar on your system, this also allows for saving a clean PDF-copy of the text.
  
  However, since I am unsure whether people really use such options, I decided to add myself PDF-versions for the articles. So, every article now has a “Download this in PDF-format” link somewhere in the header.
  
  I implemented this two days ago and yesterday’s stats show that on both websites an astonishing 50%, resp. 61% of all accesses to an article page also result in an access to the PDF-document. This is much higher than I had expected, so from a usability point of view, this seems to offer something people want. However, since I am really duplicating content on the website, does this have side-effects? Our Google friends might not like it. Any thoughts on the SEO pro’s or con’s for this?
  
  MarcB
  
  • 12 Apr 2008, 11:47 am
  Marc Buyens wrote: > I have two small websites where I publish more or less on a monthly > basis a 2-3 page article. Since reading this in a browser is not > always the most perfect thing, I have CSS in place that will allow > you to print a clean copy of the article (without all the sidebars > and other stuff that clutter the screen). If you have Adobe or > something similar on your system, this also allows for saving a clean > PDF-copy of the text. > > However, since I am unsure whether people really use such options, I > decided to add myself PDF-versions for the articles. So, every > article now has a “Download this in PDF-format” link somewhere in the > header. > > I implemented this two days ago and yesterday’s stats show that on > both websites an astonishing 50%, resp. 61% of all accesses to an > article page also result in an access to the PDF-document. This is > much higher than I had expected, so from a usability point of view, > this seems to offer something people want. However, since I am really > duplicating content on the website, does this have side-effects? Our > Google friends might not like it. Any thoughts on the SEO pro’s or > con’s for this? > > MarcB
• 
  Leonid Bart

  The company name is only visible to registered members.

  Re: Creating PDF versions of content

  My suggestion is to use the tag rel="noindex" in inbound link leading to pdf page. In this case Google do not punish your site due to duplicating content.
  
  • 12 Apr 2008, 7:33 pm
  Leonid Bart wrote: > My suggestion is to use the tag rel="noindex" in inbound link leading > to pdf page. In this case Google do not punish your site due to > duplicating content.