This is something I've wondered about before, but never pursued much: Do links from PDF's count towards link popularity?
I can't say that I know for certain. I do know that Google often caches an HTML version of a PDF document, converting URLs and links within to normal HTML links--so, my guess would be, that links from PDFs do count.
The question was asked at High Rankings in Worthy Links In Readable Documents, Links in PDF's:
If a client produces numerous PDF Fact sheets that are available for download from their site will links to URLs in the PDF's have any weight when it comes to link popularity?
xScottx replies with some good, hard evidence:
...when searching for backlinks in Google for some sites, PDFs sometimes show up....so it seems that the links in PDFs do count for link popularity.
And fathom seems to agree. Does anyone know for sure, either way? Feedback appreciated...
I remember Bruce Clay commenting at one of the conferences on pdf's NOT being filtered by one of the "link value" filtering technologies. In that particular instance, a pdf link was potentially MORE valuable than a regular link.
ResponderEliminarShort answer: yes, it's valuable.
Long answer: Worth more research to see if it's MORE valuable in instances.
MORE valuable eh? vewwy intewesting....
ResponderEliminarI have had PDF's show up as backlinks in Google. One time it was from local government site.
ResponderEliminarGood to know... even more evidence that they do indeed count!
ResponderEliminarNow I just need to publish a PDF sometime. :-)
Hi! It`s very interesting page. I`ll your regular guest. Come to my page
ResponderEliminarI think PDFs, if anything, should be given more weighting because they usually take more time and effort to create than the average web page.
ResponderEliminarAdditionally URL mentions in .txt files can also show up as linkage data in some search engines.
URLs in TXT docs show up as backlinks? In which engines?
ResponderEliminar>URLs in TXT docs show up as backlinks? In which engines?
ResponderEliminarhave not looked in a bit...but think I saw some in Google a while back.