Benefit of Historical PDF Press Articles for SEO

[DonaldRussell]

Hello

Is there SEO benefit to keep PDF news articles from 2/3 years ago live on our website? We have a page displaying positive press/pr articles to our visitors. Some of the articles are now from 2009 and I am unsure if these should remain for SEO benefit or should they be taken down or archived?

Are they good content? Are they read by Search Engines? If they are old do the count against us with Search Engines?

Look forward to some advice

Gary McDonald

[RyanKent]

Are they good content?

You tell us. Being located in a PDF does not make content good or bad. What do your users think? What does your analytics tell you? Are these pages viewed frequently?

Are they read by Search Engines?

Yes. Search engines can read PDFs.

If they are old do the count against us with Search Engines?

No. If the content is of use to users, then it would not be counted against you in any way. If the content is of no value, then it should be updated or removed.

Example 1 - you have a page or PDF that discusses a relatively timeless topic such as relationships or the 4 C's of diamonds. This content can be helpful 20 years from now.

Example 2 - you have a page or PDF discussing the best graphic cards for your pc. Three years after the page is published it probably has very little value.

If you have content on your site that is not being viewed by users, a change should occur. You can improve the visibility of the content by earning links or promoting the article. You can modify the content to make it more interesting. You can also remove the content. You do not want your crawl budget to be wasted on pages which are not of interest to your readers.

[DonaldRussell]

Thanks Ryan

Interesting questions posed and thanks for taking time to reply. Will have a good look at this.

Many thanks

Gary