SEO Optimization for .PDF Documents

[Insidedesign]

I have been trying to find up-to-date information on the SEO of .PDF documents.

Being that Google and other search engines are now trying to improve their results through 'mixed result', which include pushing .PDF documents higher in relevant searches, I am interesting in looking at the optimization of .PDF documents.

Does anyone have references or details on this sort of tactic? Thanks :)

[Ondrej]

Hi there, since I believe you're not allowed to post live links here, I'll just repaste some points I have read in article named Optimize Pdfs for Search Engines. By the way, I haven't tested any of it yet, but it sounds logical.

How to optimize a PDF file:

* Make all PDF's in text format, so that the search engine can read it;
* Complete the document's properties, (especially the title) - what usually happens is that people forget to set a title, that way the search engine will pick content from the PDF file and it might not be exactly what you would want.
* Optimize text, by making sure that selected keywords are there and can easily be identified;
* Add links to PDF files, so that readers can always be redirected to your website;
* Save files at the lowest possible Acrobat version, so that readers can easily open it, and search engines can find it;
* Sizes should be kept as small as possible, if files take too long to download users will abandon the site;
* Place links to your files on your web page where it can easily be found, i.e. closer to the root level of the site’s file structure.
* Specify reading order, in terms of text and headlines;
* Publish articles in different directories that directly link to your PDF documents