6 Replies Latest reply: Jun 17, 2011 8:54 AM by phyllisj9 RSS

    stop Google indexing of PDFs?

    phyllisj9 Community Member

      Hi,

       

      Is there anything I can do to a PDF to prevent its contents from being indexed by Google search engine? I'm unable to set a robots.txt file on the server, though I suppose I could painstakingly resave the PDFs with parts of the fonts outlined. I'm concerned about staff listings inside a PDF -- the contents of the PDF are indexed by Google, so it makes it too easy to find out where someone works by googling their name. Concerned about privacy/safety.

       

      Any suggestions?

       

      Thanks, Phyllis

        • 1. Re: stop Google indexing of PDFs?
          ~graffiti CommunityMVP

          You could save the PDF's in the .jpg format (or yes, outlining the text would do the trick).

           

          Other than that, placing all the PDF's in the same folder and adding a robot.txt file would be the only choice I'm aware of. Keep in mind that a robot.txt file is a gentlemen's agreement and isn't necesarily honored by some search engines although Google does tend to honor them.

          • 2. Re: stop Google indexing of PDFs?
            simonbell9 Community Member

            Hi,

             

            It is not my exact area of expertise but I think you can turn it off using Google Webmaster tools.

             

            If the information is that sensitive them I would remove file completely.

             

            Thanks

            Simon

            • 3. Re: stop Google indexing of PDFs?
              Bill@VT CommunityMVP

              For such sensitive files, I simply put them in a password protected folder on my site. That is the simplest process.

              • 4. Re: stop Google indexing of PDFs?
                phyllisj9 Community Member

                Thanks everybody.  I wish I had a choice not to post these files on the Internet, but they are PDFs of my company's magazine.  They want them online and searchable -- I'm just trying to figure out how to keep Google from indexing the staff names.  I guess I'll outline that section every issue (and go back and redo all the past issues).  I wish Google would give people options on what was indexed.  I think it's really unsafe that they force everything to be searchable unless you can go to great lengths to prevent it.  I don't have access to the main server for a robots file, nor can I password-protect this.

                 

                Thanks, Phyllis

                • 5. Re: stop Google indexing of PDFs?
                  phyllisj9 Community Member

                  Is it possible to force an existing PDF into outline form?  Can I re-distill to achieve that rather than starting over and recreating everything?

                   

                  Thanks, Phyllis

                  • 6. Re: stop Google indexing of PDFs?
                    phyllisj9 Community Member

                    Just in case the question comes up for anyone else:

                     

                    You can take an existing PDF and outline the text (without having to start over from InDesign).  I used this tutorial here:

                    http://www.stevewareham.com/text2outlines.php

                     

                    I'm outlining just the page of our magazine that has the staff list on it because I really don't like that Google shows people where I work immediately.

                     

                    Easy to go through and do that to the PDFs on our website now that I know how it's done. (Would have been really painful to try to recreate the PDFs.)

                     

                    I wish there were some way of opting out of having massive amounts of personal information online.  I keep trying to get all these companies like mylife.com to remove my information.  Those should be opt IN (not out) procedures (I've never been a member of their site yet they were making my personal information available online).

                     

                    Thanks, Phyllis