SEO Tips - File Formats for your content

Search engines have long been able to index (i.e. interpret and catalogue) more than just plain old HTML pages. Google, for example, currently indexes the following file formats in addition to standard HTML.

• Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
• Adobe PostScript (ps)
• Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
• Lotus WordPro (lwp)
• MacWrite (mw)
• Microsoft Excel (xls)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
• Microsoft Word (doc)
• Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)
• Microsoft Write (wri)
• Rich Text Format (rtf)
• Shockwave Flash (swf)
• Text (ans, txt)

An extensive list, to be sure. However, note that Google does not index the text that is contained in graphics. Another SEO-Tip shows you how to help Google understand graphics a bit better. And although Google can index the text in Flash movies, pure Flash sites still present many problems to the indexing routines.

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