Same pdf attachments placed on more websites good for seo?

[joeko]

Hi

I would like to ask if it is duplicate content if I place on my website article with pdf attachment-the same pdf attachment is placed on more websites. Worldwide company made article (short article and some photos) with special offer in pdf, this pdf file is placed on more sites. How google handle with this file? Can google read text inside?

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Jozef

You know, I have not come across this issue with PDF's causing problems as duplicates but ultimately, a duplicate is a duplicate and if you want to republish this content then it would be worth examining the reasons for doing so.

Is this purely, as you say, to give access to a special offer and is something purely to benefit your users and not in any way for driving more search traffic? If so, I would just create a folder for these pdfs and block that in robots.txt.

If your folder was simply called pdfs/ we would need something along the lines of:

User-agent: * Disallow: /pdfs/

This way you can use these PDFs and make them available without ever having to worry about them causing any kind of duplication issue.

Additionally, PDFs do sometimes get indexed and can make pretty poor landing pages, especially if they have the branding of another company and no navigation to get into your site so again, this is a good thing.

If you are looking to use these to generate more exposure then create a unique landing page, add the link to the PDF but ensure the PDF is blocked in robots.txt.

You can also issue meta no index (REP tags) via your webserver in the HTTP header to block out specific files or file types but I would imagine the simple robots.txt and a directory solution is a perfectly suitable and easier to implement solution in this case.

Hope that helps!
Marcus