Google and .pdf

... links on .pdf pages

[austtr]

I tried the forum search but didn't find an answer so apologies if this has been done to death already.

We know that Google crawls and indexes .pdf pages.... but does it give the same importance to a text link appearing on a .pdf page as it would if the link were on a html page?

If there was to be a PR gain from the link on a html page, is the same gain derived from a link on a .pdf page? I'm considering an offer for reciprocals with a batch of .pdf pages and realised I don't know much about the subject.

I'll probably do the links anyway because it's on topic and will make a positive contribution to the viewers experience.... but I'd like to expand my knowledge base at the same time.

[doc_z]

As far as I know links from PDFs are considered for PR calculation. At least I saw a PDF as a backlink some month ago. In this case there would be probably no difference (for transferred PR) compared to an HTML page (with the same PR and same number of links on it). However, I have a PR4 PDF with one link on it but currently it isn't shown as a backlink.

The importance anchor is independent from PR distribution. I would guess that in the case of a PDF the URL is taken as anchor text (which would be a disadvantage compared to an HTML link).

[sun818]

It depends on how the link is created in the PDF file. Anchor text can be words instead of a URL if you want. But I don't see that as much as the anchor text being URL.