Google Search’s View PDF Link May Go To Google Docs

Jul 8, 2009 at 9:36am ET by Barry Schwartz

Typically, when Google shows a PDF document in the Google search results, you see a link to “view as HTML,” in the snippet. Here is a picture of what you see most of the time:

Now, it appears Google is showing a link that reads just “View” and links you to the PDF within a Google Docs view. Please note that this happens on some PDFs and not all. Here is a picture of that:

When you click on “View” it takes you to Google Docs. For example, for the search [triangle heights concurrency] you can see the View link and when you click on it, you are taken here, to Google Docs.

Hat tip to Google Operating System for spotting this.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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