Do word files on websites get read by google. Is it better to turn it into html?

[macmacman]

Hi

We have some documents that have been written and formated in ms word.

We would like to add them to our website as references. I am doing this simply by adding a link to them like this:

mydomain.com/guide.doc

They then open or save as a word file.

Is this ok in seo terms or do i have to convert them to html?

Thanks in advance.

[davidshaw89]

PDF would be better. Lots of people have different versions of word, or don't have word at all.

I know for certain that google can read PDFs because i have been taken straight to one from the search results page on more than one occasion.

To convert your word file to pdf, download "primo pdf" - its free, and installs itself as a printer, so you can create pdfs from any program that allows you to print :)

[edmondscommerce]

I would recommend converting to HTML

yes Google can index PDFs but only if they are done in the right way, not sure if that printer addon would do that.

HTML is definitely indexable, will load faster for the user and work for everyone.