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Does is matter if I use this URL for a PDF attached to a posting:

www.example.com/slug1/posting/xyz.pdf

or 

www.example.com/downloads/xyz.pdf
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3  
There are a few questions on here about URL relevance in SEO with a lot of good suggestions. The same rules apply if it's a content page or a downloadable PDF (as PDFs can also be indexed by Google): webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/2105/… webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/2894/… – Mark Henderson Sep 25 '10 at 22:50

1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Since Google indexes PDF files then a more descriptive URL will help in ranking. However the benefit is likely to be pretty small. (This is partly because PDF files generally do not garner many direct links and thus are rare in search results.)

If possible, I would suggest creating a HTML version of the PDF, with a link to "download as PDF". You should end up with a better ranking for the HTML page.

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