PDF catalogs under product categories available for customers, visible for Google.

[Dolke]

Hi,

 

I recently got my PDF catalog addon for eMagicOne Store Manager for Prestashop.

This addon is great and simple way to make PDF catalogs of complete product categories and even the whole base of products that are sold on your website.

 

What I want to do is to import these PDF files inside category pages so my customers can click on those PDFs and view it in another window or download it locally. In the same time I would like to make those PDF files transparent to Google so they get picked up by the Google bots and make their place in the index.

 

Is there some module or some other simple way to implement this?

Btw, here is the example of one PDF catalog that I made for specific product category.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gljrgw4shnnze1y/katalog%20tunel%20guma..pdf
 

(I made my own custom layout, you can give me some comments about that as well )

 

 

Thank you in advance.
Dean

[tuk66]

What is your PrestaShop version? You can insert links in category description, for example in v1.5.6.0. So then you need to put all your PDFs to a directory and create the link to the corresponding file.

[Dolke]

Hello,

 

I use 1.5.4.1

I know how to add it to CMS pages but I have PDFs ready to be implemented on each product page as well and I do have over 4000 products so its quite a task...

 

[tuk66]

I have meant that you want to add the PDF for each category, not products.

 

If you have all PDFs for products named close to products, for example with ID in the file name, then you can adapt your theme and add links like:

 

http://your_domain.com/pdf/1234.pdf

[Dolke]

Well that would work for me to.

 

So basically I would upload PDF for each category. 
I have these PDFs created in the way of catalog for each product category...

So I would need to insert PDF docs somewhere like on http://www.screencast.com/t/aBF0CT3cto0 right ?

[tuk66]

Yes, somewhere, but your server is the best as you can use PDF names corresponding to IDs (category or product). With PDF named "aBF0CT3cto0" would be a problem.

[Dolke]

I'm confused now mate.

 

There are several reasons why I made these PDF documents and one of the most important is to have it for the SEO purposes.

As I'm familiar, Google and others like to have content with valuable and useful information like the ones I would be providing in these docs.

 

On the other hand these PDF files are useful for my customers and visitors because they can download them or view them directly in the browser (this second is preferred) and even print them for other purposes.

PDFs are organised as category catalogs, so I have all the products from one category in the PDF with corresponding info.

 

Idea to put PDF for each category instead of each product is actually great one, because if I would put PDF to each product, I would be making a copies and that's certainly something that is not helping my SEO and eventually does put some extra load on the server resources. 

These PDF would be uploaded to the server that's clear, but I cant name them after lets say category ID. There is no point to that because I want my PDF to be SEO friendly from the actual name to content.

I hope you are seeing where I'm heading with this...

[tuk66]

I am sure you will find a proper way. My opinion is that SEO is overvaluated. You get many more visitors through a direct marketing on Facebook, forums etc.

[Dolke]

Direct marketing didn't get me satisfying results. I was using Facebook ads and Google AdWords and still using it of course but I'm not happy with the conversation rates and revenue gained compared to the invested time, money and efforts.

 

This is one of the few things we want to try and influence our SEO, its already move we decided to make.

I think mixing all the technics and methods is the right way to bring a online business on another level.

 

Now back to topic

 

What would be the way to import these PDFs on those pages? In other words, how to do it?

I'm using default PS theme and version of the PS is 1.5.4.1

Also, is there a way to make PDFs open in another windows or a tab instead of being downloaded when visitor clicks on it?

How can I be certain that PDF would be picked up and indexed by the Google?

 

Thank you in advance.

Edited November 14, 2013 by Dolke (see edit history)

[PascalVG]

Hi Dean,

No comment at the moment about how to implement it, but opening your sample PDF, noticed some "code" in your PDF files, wasn't sure if you had noticed.

 

 

Seems some (path to) missing font or so?

 

Just to let you know,

pascal.

[Dolke]

Hey PascalVG

Thanks for the input. I know about that issue.

You see I'm using Store Manager for PrestaShop made by eMagicOne and I have this PDF catalog creator addon for this software.

It gives me ability to create PDF files with many products in just few minutes.

I made my own layout and it seems that for some reason it doesn't pull up short description field properly so thats why we see this "path to" string. I checked the same thing with some pre-installed layout and it seems to be working fine with it so Its some sort of bug or my mistake and I already reported this to their developers.

In the first place this feature to display short description info was not even implemented when using custom layout form but they fixed it on my suggestion in the latest release of the addon and Store Manager update (2.9.0.702 from 05.11.2013.).

You said right now you don't have a comment on how to implement these PDFs...what about some advice and suggestion about making these docs more SEO friendly? Is it better to have them opened in another windows or a tab instead of downloading it on a click?

Thanks
Dean

 

[Dolke]

Any module or script that I can use to accomplish this task?

[Dolke]

Hi,

 

Thank you for the link.

 

Problem is that I made the PDFs, I already have this tool. Right now I'm searching for a way to implement these files into category pages.

[Dolke]

Hi,

 

Any suggestions?

As I already said I need to implement PDF catalog file on each category page. As I don't have HTML editor for category description I cannot accomplish this through back office so I need some customization. 

It should look like something like this: http://www.screencast.com/t/UYweAzMzTvtq

All PDF files should be stored on the same folder on the server.

Also on click file should open in another window and not download.

Thanks.
Dean

 

 

[Dolke]

Anyone?????

[Dolke]

Hi,

 

I managed to implement the above but my PDF is not picked up by Google. 

See this page for example:
http://dekom.co.rs/78-tunel-gume-za-ves-masine-i-susilice

There is whole catalog of this category under that PDF file but document was not picked up by the Google for over a month now.

What can I do to increase chances of this and similar PDFs to be included in the Google index?

Thank you
Dean

 

[tuk66]

I think the catalog is too big. I tried to load it but no PDF content appeared within 60s. Google doesn't like big and slow pages (or PDFs).

[Dolke]

I see. Thank you tuk66,

Do you happen to know any tool that I can use in order to optimize PDFs (reduce size and similar actions)?

[tuk66]

How big is this PDF? 15 pages and I haven't loaded it yet. It must be huuuuge.

[Dolke]

2.25 MB

[tuk66]

I suggest to put the PDF to a CDN because this is an issue for your actual hosting.

[Dolke]

Im not sure what do you mean by "put the PDF to CDN"?

[tuk66]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network

[Dolke]

I know what CDN is but Im not sure what do you mean by "putting PDFs" to CDN?

put how...? 

[tuk66]

Sorry for my inaccurate idea. I mean try to store the PDF using some CDN service, out of your hosting. It is impossible for me to download the file.

[Dolke]

I see, thanks for the suggestion.

I will check with my hosting provider first to see if the issue is on their end. If so, I will use some external cloud storage for the PDFs...