Are flip books - pdf readers on websites SEO friendly?

[SteveK64]

I have a client with bar, most of their content is menus that are displayed in a flip book format.

Is this content indexed by search engines, and if so, are they of any value for ranking?

[FedeEinhorn]

Google indexes PDF contents and files almost like regular HTML. Links are followed, you can block indexing, etc. Just like regular HTML. The only thing Google can't index from PDFs are images, unless you have it in HTML format elsewhere.

I would definitely recommend converting those PDF menus to regular HTML.

You can find more info here:

What file types can Google index?

Can google fully index pdf files?

Hope that helps!

[ThompsonPaul]

Most FlipBooks work by converting the pdf into a Flash file and then embedding that Flash file into the host site's page, Stephen. The contents of this Flash file can't be effectively read or indexed by the search engines, so they essentially provide no SEO value at all.

One way around this is to provide a download link to the actual PDF file on the page in addition to the flipbook. That way, the  search engines can find it and rank it. (there are a number of best-practices for optimising PDFs that should be followed for best indexing and ranking.)

In addition, you can use the site's .htaccess file to insert a canonical header into the PDF pointing back at the menu page it's hosted on to try to consolidate ranking value in the main page instead of in the pdf if you wish.

As Federico says, the ideal for crawling and ranking is to have the menu contents in plain html on the page,but if that's not possible, the above solutions will still be effective.

Hope that helps?

Paul

[SteveK64]

Thanks Paul

Great advice

[SteveK64]

Thanks for the reply Federico, the link were very helpful

[FedeEinhorn]

Oh, just spotted this video that refers to your question:

watch?v=421aTJI2Nxc