Assume that you are having a single web page with several links to your papers:
...
Author list 1, Paper Title 1 [PDF] [PS], publication venue 1, year 1
Author list 2, Paper Title 2 [PDF] [PS] [DVI], publication venue 2, year 2
Author list 3, Paper Title 3 [PDF] [PS], publication venue 3, year 3
...
with linked PS/PDF/DVI versions of your papers.
I wish to know how to optimize this structure towards the standard search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, ...). My current attempt is:
<ul>
<li>Author list 1, <i>Paper Title 1</i> <span style="font-size:smaller">[<a href="filename1.pdf" title="Paper Title 1">PDF</a>] [<a href="filename1.ps" title="Paper Title 1">PS</a>]</span>, publication venue 1, year 1</li>
<li>Author list 2, <i>Paper Title 2</i> <span style="font-size:smaller">[<a href="filename2.pdf" title="Paper Title 2">PDF</a>] [<a href="filename2.ps" title="Paper Title 2">PS</a>] [<a href="filename2.dvi" title="Paper Title 2">DVI</a>]</span>, publication venue 2, year 2</li>
<li>Author list 3, <i>Paper Title 3</i> <span style="font-size:smaller">[<a href="filename3.pdf" title="Paper Title 3">PDF</a>] [<a href="filename3.ps" title="Paper Title 3">PS</a>]</span>, publication venue 3, year 3</li>
</ul>
This approach might be problematic. First, the files might be indexed under "PDF", "PS", or "DVI", but not while one searches for "Paper Title n". Is this true? Second, is the value of the title
attribute really honored by the search engines for the purpose of indexing? I've read somewhere that the search engines use the title only for displaying purposes. Third, if two or three anchors have the same title but only slightly differing targets, would the search engines consider the site as an advertising site?
For the single web page in question (with 20 paper references of the above kind), I have full rights (add, edit, remove) to manage the directory containing the HTML file. I have no admin rights for the Web server. Any improvement suggestions are welcome. My goal is that the web page looks nice and that standard Web search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, ...) index all the documents properly (with a good rank if possible) and associate them with the corresponding titles. References are welcome.
<pdf> <-- THIS IS NOT VALID HTML5 --> </pdf>
– Simon Hayter♦ Sep 28 '17 at 19:04<a href="build-your-own-electric-car.pdf>Build Your Own Electric Car</a>
Would rank forHow to Build Your Own Electric Car PDF
but it unlikely to rank forHow to Build Your Own Electric Car
because it generally it favours HTML pages. PDF is a search intent variable, like sell, buy, find etc. The landing page would need to contain those keywords, they need not appear within<a>
. Once you have enough signals, its all noise, off page SEO takes over. Anchors should be tailored for your users, not bots. – Simon Hayter♦ Sep 29 '17 at 16:58