Tips on getting rid of old pdf search results for you site?

how are pdf's seen on SE's?

[kilo]

Anyone have any suggestions on removing old pdf's (by your site) from showing on search results on Google?

There were a couple pdf files that we saw showing up when we tested a couple keywords. We're not sure if we would like ppl seeing these pdf's and we dont even know where it is linked from. We have access to the file and can easily change it, but we dont want to remove it from where it is at the moment.

any suggestions?

and on the revesre side....Is there a way to optimize pdfs for SE's in general?

[engine]

If you can't find the original source it's going to be difficult.
The best bet is to simply remove the pdf from your site. If you wanted to make use of the file, create a new pdf and replace the old one.
Alternatively, you could set up a redirect

As to optimizing pdfs, [webmasterworld.com] try this as a starter.

Remember, it also about optimizing the file size, too.

[SEOMike]

If you want to keep the PDFs but not have them show up in the engines, put them in their own directory and block the robots from seeing them by using your robots.txt.

You can find out all about the robots.txt file and how to use it in the robots.txt forum [webmasterworld.com]

PDFs can be nice for SEO purposes. We have some that get very good ranking and are right on target for what the searcher wants to see.

Oh and PS... there's a great program out there called Xenu that will map out your entire site and it will tell you exactly what pages link to your PDFs

<disclaimer> I'm not associated with that program at all, but use it regularly </disclaimer>