Using metadata in PDFs that are posted online
One often overlooked search engine optimization (SEO) tactic is metadata in PDF files. Metadata is the additional information inside a file that is meant to assist with the file's use -- either keywords for searching, the file size, authors, or additional properties.
Metadata can be especially helpful if your company produces a large number of PDFs that are posted on your website, to help users find them through Google, but especially through your site's internal search. But even for the occasional PDF you post, you should spend a minute or two thinking about metadata for each document, just like you think about the titles of your web pages to ensure they're optimized for search engines.
You'll find metadata in the Properties area of Adobe Acrobat. The exact location might vary for different versions, but in the one I use -- Acrobat 8 Professional -- it can be found in File>Properties, on the Description tab. You'll see some basic metadata such as the title and author on that page, but if you click the Additional Metadata button, there are even more options, as illustrated in the screenshot.
Make sure you're including the title, a description of your document, and some keywords at a minimum. These will boost the search friendliness of your file.
A few words of warning about metadata in PDF files (and really any other type of file that generates it). Metadata can be great for improving people's ability to find your document, but it can also come back to haunt you. You see, some programs generate their own metadata based on the filename you assign to the file. Sometimes that metadata doesn't disappear, even when you change the filename. One of my former colleagues found this out the hard way.
I don't remember the exact details because it was some time ago, but she was creating a brochure in either Quark or InDesign (we used to use Quark for page layout, but made the move to InDesign about a year ago). This was a difficult assignment that was taking a long time, and she wasn't happy with her progress. At one point as a joke, she named the file "Brochure From Hell." I'm sure you see where this is going...
When she finished the project, she converted the file into a PDF. Of course she changed the filename of the PDF once it was created. But she either 1) didn't know or 2) forgot that when she created a PDF from her page layout program, Adobe Acrobat grabs the name of the file and inserts it as metadata in the Document Title field. So even though she had changed the actual filename of the PDF, the old "Brochure From Hell" name still existed in the metadata.
The file -- metadata and all -- got posted to one of our websites. We didn't realize what had happened until the beginning of the next month, when the web stats were being compiled. In the referring keywords from search engines, our stats package was telling us some people had come to our site by doing a search on the words "Brochure From Hell." A quick Google search turned up this page:
(I blurred the description to protect the innocent, but basically it had a little more metadata, and the first line of the brochure's text.)
Metadata can be your best friend for making documents easier to find, but it can also be your worst enemy if you don't realize it's there!
Related links:
Here's an excellent article about metadata in PDFs that makes recommendations about managing your metadata.
Metadata can be especially helpful if your company produces a large number of PDFs that are posted on your website, to help users find them through Google, but especially through your site's internal search. But even for the occasional PDF you post, you should spend a minute or two thinking about metadata for each document, just like you think about the titles of your web pages to ensure they're optimized for search engines.
Make sure you're including the title, a description of your document, and some keywords at a minimum. These will boost the search friendliness of your file.
A few words of warning about metadata in PDF files (and really any other type of file that generates it). Metadata can be great for improving people's ability to find your document, but it can also come back to haunt you. You see, some programs generate their own metadata based on the filename you assign to the file. Sometimes that metadata doesn't disappear, even when you change the filename. One of my former colleagues found this out the hard way.
I don't remember the exact details because it was some time ago, but she was creating a brochure in either Quark or InDesign (we used to use Quark for page layout, but made the move to InDesign about a year ago). This was a difficult assignment that was taking a long time, and she wasn't happy with her progress. At one point as a joke, she named the file "Brochure From Hell." I'm sure you see where this is going...
When she finished the project, she converted the file into a PDF. Of course she changed the filename of the PDF once it was created. But she either 1) didn't know or 2) forgot that when she created a PDF from her page layout program, Adobe Acrobat grabs the name of the file and inserts it as metadata in the Document Title field. So even though she had changed the actual filename of the PDF, the old "Brochure From Hell" name still existed in the metadata.
The file -- metadata and all -- got posted to one of our websites. We didn't realize what had happened until the beginning of the next month, when the web stats were being compiled. In the referring keywords from search engines, our stats package was telling us some people had come to our site by doing a search on the words "Brochure From Hell." A quick Google search turned up this page:
(I blurred the description to protect the innocent, but basically it had a little more metadata, and the first line of the brochure's text.)
Metadata can be your best friend for making documents easier to find, but it can also be your worst enemy if you don't realize it's there!
Related links:
Here's an excellent article about metadata in PDFs that makes recommendations about managing your metadata.
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