Need advice: How to replace a high-ranking pdf with a landing page -- without dropping much in rank?

[jomosi]

Hi!  We have a pdf of a white paper on our site that ranks #1 for a niche term.  We are now exploring the idea of building a landing page for this paper with an overview (2-3 paragraphs) and a registration form for interested parties to fill out in order to access the paper.

Do you think there'd be any hope of ensuring the new landing page would rank almost as well eventually (top 3)? I'm thinking a key consideration would be preserving the link juice from the existing links that are coming into the pdf, and that 301 redirecting the pdf URL to the new landing page URL could help with that.  Am I right?  Or would it be better to try to reach out to the linking sites and ask them to update their links (seems daunting).

Any advice/opinions on this situation would be appreciated.  (If folks think that there would be a significant risk of permanently dropping out of the top 5 by attempting this, we would likely choose to leave the pdf ungated as is.)  Thanks!!

-John

[Chris_Hickman]

Hello John, interesting dilemma you have. I think you have a good idea as well. I would be interested to learn about the level of competition for this term, I imagine it can not be that intensive if your PDF is ranking #1.

My recommendation would be to build the landing page, but include some of the content from your PDF as a preview. You can then offer the free download sign up to continue reading. It's likely the PDF is ranking well because of the content.

Of course you will want to create a 301 redirect to the new landing page from the old PDF URL. Also, keep the same title tag or anchor text that people are using to link to the PDF or the title that Google is currently giving the PDF. I think you have a good chance of retaining the #1 ranking if done right.

You may also have meta information within your PDF that you will want to migrate to the landing page. We're a big fan of landing pages at AdFicient and this sounds like a promising opportunity. Best of luck.

[becole]

John, that's a good question. Depending on the competitiveness of the keyword, I would hesitate to set up a 301 redirect--you still may see ranking changes if you replaced it with a landing page.

I suspect that the reason why it's ranking is because other sites are linking directly to the PDF file, the content. If you were to remove that PDF, they might stop linking to it.

One option would be to edit the PDF file and make that PDF the landing page (in .pdf format), that would be the same URL.

[DonnaDuncan]

John,

Not long ago, you should have fully expected to lose up to 15% of a page's SEO equity with a 301 redirect. That changed in February of this year when Google's John Mueller announced that no page rank is lost with 301 or 302 redirects.

Moz's own Cyrus Shepard wrote a What You Need To Know Post after that announcement. I think if you read it, you'll be well equipped to weigh your options and decide on the best path forward for this particular situation.

[jomosi]

Thanks Chris, Bernadette and Donna for your thoughtful answers.  After considering your advice (and the resources you shared), I think it's worth a try.  If nothing else, it will be a good experiment (and fairly low risk -- even though the pdf ranks #1, it's not a high-volume term).  I think it will be important for the landing page to provide a really meaty, useful synopsis (as Chris suggested) that still offers some value on its own.  Thanks again!

-John