SerpCrest
New

PDF SEO Checker

See how Google will read a PDF: the title it will show, whether the text can be indexed, missing metadata, and noindex or canonical headers on the live URL.

Reports, whitepapers and price lists get published as PDFs and forgotten. Check what search engines can actually read before you link to one.

Title
What Google will show
Text
Indexable or scanned
Headers
noindex and canonical
Local
PDF never uploaded
PDF SEO checkerRuns locally
Private: the file is read in your browser and never uploaded.
Drop a PDF here, or click to chooseUp to 50 MB

How it works

1

Drop in the PDF

It is read in your browser: metadata, the text on every page, links, bookmarks and tags.

2

See it the way Google does

The title the result will most likely show, whether the text can be indexed at all, and what is missing from the metadata.

3

Add the live address (optional)

Paste where the PDF is published and we read its HTTP headers: status, content type, X-Robots-Tag noindex and a canonical header.

Questions

Yes, and they rank like web pages. Google indexes the text in a PDF, follows and credits its links, and uses the Title metadata (or the anchor text of links pointing to the file) as the result title.

A scanned PDF is a stack of pictures. Search engines do not read text inside images, so a scanned document has nothing to rank for. Run it through OCR, or export again from the original file.

In Word: File > Info > Properties > Title, then export. In Acrobat: File > Properties > Description. Some exporters only use the title when "Document properties" is ticked in the export options.

A PDF has no HTML head, so a meta robots tag is impossible. Send an X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header for the file instead. If the PDF repeats a web page, a Link header with rel="canonical" points search engines at the page.

No. The file is read in your browser. If you add the live address, our server requests that address to read its headers, the same as a browser would.

When the Title field is empty or is something automatic like "Microsoft Word - draft.docx", Google falls back to text from the first page or to the file name. The preview shows which one it is likely to use.

Yes. In August 2026 PDFs from IRS.gov started disappearing from Google search, and our post on that drop covers what is and is not known. To test the links inside a PDF, use the PDF and Word link checker.

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