(Entry was posted by JL Faverio on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 05/23/2019).

Long CMS slug in SERPs

Here`s an SEO question (kinda).For PDF files hosted on a site, would you rec to upload them into a separate directory (ex: /pdf) instead of through a CMS dashboard (ex: WordPress)? That way when the PDFs get indexed, it`s not showing the long CMS slug in SERPs. Thanks!

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Michael Martinez: I don`t think most people care about how long the slug is in the search results any more. We`ve all become accustomed to long URLs.
Jose Perez: Do you want to rank the PDF or just don`t like the long ass URL?

Regardless, you don`t need to upload it to a different folder. Just create an htaccess rule that replaces the /wp-content/uploads/ paths for /pdf/ when a URL ends on .pdf
JL Faverio: I like your style, thanks!
Stockbridge Truslow: Watch out if you have your media folders set to increment monthly... it`ll be hard to find them with that redirect.

Plus, if that redirect gives a 301 - then it`s still going to show the end point where it actually resides. You`d need to 302 them, not 301. (302`s keep the original URL where 301 uses the new redirected URL).
Steve Wiideman: Most of mine are in /pdf and blocked by robots.txt
Kim Krause Berg: I have a situation where some PDF`s are updated every month, so these are uploaded to WordPress in the Media library and replaced there. The clients do not have access to FTP, and this is the solution. That, and I make them accessible before uploading.