Viewing Creating page for document search -

Creating page for document search -



User: Michael C. 4 years ago
Hello -
I use EW to create a website dedicated to a music journal that publishes digital and print issues.
The digital editions exist as PDFs and what I'd like to do is setup a way for visitors to search past issues for content.
I setup a Google search widget and added some PDFs to a page - the search works fine, but I don't want visitors to be able to download the PDFs - which seems to happen from the search results (the journal is a paid subscription and I want even non-subscribers to be able to search).
Any suggestions on how to set this up?
Thanks for any help -

Michael
User: EverWeb Support 4 years ago
Hi Michael,

Thank you for the details on the issue!

Do users find PDF's or do they find pages from where the PDF's can be downloaded?

I will be waiting for your reply.

Best Regards,
Chris
EverWeb Support Team

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EverWeb Customer Support
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User: Michael C. 4 years ago
Thank you, Chris -
Google returns a search containing links to the PDFs - clicking on the link loads the PDF.
Here's my page:
http://www.brucknerjournal.com/Issues/backissues1.html

Michael
User: Roddy 4 years ago
You would need to upload a "taster" version of the PDF with only the first page.

The full PDF files should be zipped and accessed for download from a password protected memebers only page.

-------------------------------
Roddy

Website: http://everwebwidgets.com
Contact: http://everwebwidgets.com/ewWidgets-home/contact.html
NOTE: I am an EverWeb user and NOT affiliated with EverWeb! Any opinions expressed in this forum are my own.
User: Cornelis V. 4 years ago
Create a 'Redirect' listing of every PDF in a '.htaccess' plain text file and 'ftp' that in the root folder of your hosted website.
See attached image and example of one redirect:

Redirect /Issues/ewExternalFiles/bruckner_journal_v3_1.pdf http://www.brucknerjournal.com

In the example above everybody that clicks on this google result will be redirected to the home page of your website.
If you are not familiar with the .htaccess process than you are welcome to ask me how to.

Last edit 4 years ago

Redirect.png
User: Michael C. 4 years ago
Thank you, Cornelius - I am a novice and have no familiarity with .htacess so I'd appreciate your guidance.

And thanks, Roddy - it seems that uploading only the first page of the PDF will limit the search results since the entire document would not be available. I thought about password protecting the PDFs so that the Google search would search the entire doc, display the results - but when clicking on the link in the search results, the site requested a password - but I'm not knowledgable enough to figure out how to set that up.

Appreciate the help!

Michael
User: Cornelis V. 4 years ago
To my knowledge Google doesn't index a PDF which is password protected or encrypted.

Before I start a lengthy story about the 'Redirect' process it is important to know how you distribute the PDF's to your paid subscribers?

And why would you be so worried about people downloading the PDF's from the Google results as people can download ALL FULL VERSIONS ALSO from the http://www.brucknerjournal.com/Issues/backissues1.html page of your website?

Actually there are multiple issues as far as I can tell. To start using the 'Redirect' process you'll need another way of distributing the PDF's to your paid subscribers.
Maybe too much to be involved as a novice ....

Last edit 4 years ago
User: Michael C. 4 years ago
Thanks Cornelius -

The PDFs to subscribers are sent to them by an email list - so it is separate from the website.

The "past issues" pages on the website do make some older issues available to download to anyone for free. However, more current issues are not available - other pages just list the table of contents and do not have the link to download:
http://www.brucknerjournal.com/Issues/backissues5.html
User: Cornelis V. 4 years ago
That is good news. In this case the .htaccess redirect process will work without interfering with your paid subscribers.

Be prepared that this procedure is lengthy and difficult with lots of steps involved for a novice.
If you still want to continue then we better take this thread offline by sending an email.

You may already start preparing for step 1)

NOTE: keep these details to yourself. Do not post or email them to anyone!

1) Get your '(S)FTP' (S stands for secure and is preferable) details from the web hosting provider that you use. Probably these '(S)FTP' details can be found when you login to your personal account. Otherwise contact their help-desk.

You'll need to look for something like this:
Host: (s)ftp.brucknerjournal.com (probably, but could be something else)
Username: ?????
Password: ?????
Protocol: FTP with SSH port-number: ## (this one is important)

Last edit 4 years ago
User: Cornelis V. 4 years ago
I received your email and replied - extensively. Please check your Spam/Junk-box if the email is not in your Inbox.
User: Michael C. 4 years ago
Thank you, Cornelius!
Very detailed and explanatory - your help is amazing :-)


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