Indexing of PDF files

[Daylan]

Hey all,

I understand the functionality of PDF files being indexed and how to remove them if required so in this post I'm not requiring any advice on 'how to' as such, but i just wanted to get a general opinion/consensus of if you deliberately allow PDF files to be crawled/indexed.
Whether or not you guys optimise the files for search.
If you do disallow them from being crawled and indexed, why?
Generally the pro's and con's you may have found about have searchable PDF files as part of your indexed content.

[EGOL]

No opinions here... just facts....

• PDF files show in your Google backlinks

• PDF files can contain anchor text backlinks

• PDF files accumulate pagerank

• PDF files pass pagerank

• If you place obvious links in PDF files people will click them and land onto your .html pages

• Other people sometimes grab your PDF files and place them on their own website giving you backlinks from their domain if you were smart enough to embed links within them

• PDF files can be optimized, rank high in the search engines and pull in a LOT of traffic

• Some types of content displays and prints much better  in a PDF file than it does on a webpage

• PDF files allow you to control the "look" of printed documents

• A huge report is often better posted as a PDF than as html documents

• You can lock PDF documents to keep others from monkeying with your content (determined people will get around this).

• Contrary to popular belief, PDF documents can be monetized... just toss in a shopping link or links to pages where money can be made.  I have not heard of anyone paying for ad space in a PDF but there is no reason why that could not be done.