SEO Questions And Answers
1.
What is the function of "indexer" part of the Google search engine?
a. It helps to retrieve web pages from the World Wide Web
b. It helps to gather information from other search engines
c. It helps to sort the documents that Google has retrieved
d. It helps to generate meaningful results based upon the user's search term
2.
Which of the following factors contribute towards link popularity of a website?
a.
The number of websites that link to it
b.
The number of pages of the website indexed by Google
c.
The number of pages in the website
d.
The quality of websites that link to it
3.
What will happen it you type the words ‘Certification –Networking’ in the
Google search box?
a.
Google will find the web pages about Certification and also containing the word
“Networking”
b.
Google will find all the web pages containing the words “Certification” and
“Networking”
c.
Google will find all the web pages in which the words “Certification” and
“Networking” appear together
d.
Google will find the web pages about Certification that do not contain the word
Networking
4.
Which of the following statements is correct with regard to the description
meta tag?
a.
It should be about 50 characters in length
b.
The description should not contain the keywords
c.
If the meta description is not included, the search engine will use the meta
keywords for information
d.
Google uses the meta description to generate the search engine results pages
5.
Why is it a bad idea from the seo perspective to host free articles and write
ups that are very common on the internet.
a.
Because they will not lead to fresh traffic
b.
Because you could get penalized by search engines for using duplicate content
c.
Because you will not get the benefits of proper keyword targeting
d.
Because people could turn up claiming copy right infringement
6.
Which of the following factors does Google take into account while assessing
whether or not a website is an authority website?
a.
The frequency with which the content of the website is updated
b.
The number of web pages containing relevant information on the main theme of
the website
c.
The number of in-bound natural links related to the website’s theme
d.
None of the above
7.
Which of the following actions could you banned by Google?
a.
Hiding text on the webpage
b.
Stuffing keywords on the webpage
c.
Linking to sites banned by Google
d.
None of the above
8.
Which of the following statements is correct with regard to the images within
the webpage?
a.
Images cannot be spidered by the search engines
b.
Important keywords related to the image should be placed in the ALT text
c.
Images should always be kept close to the top of a webpage
d.
Image maps should be used while including the images
9.
Do search engines such as Google detect unnatural linking patterns by checking
the class C IP address of the page where the link to the website originates?
a.
Yes
b.
No
Answers:
1: d
2: a, b, c and d
3: d
4: d
5: b
6: a, b and c
7: a, b and c
8: b
9: a
SEO Job Interview Questions | Elance SEO Questions | SEO
Interview Questions
- If a website's
search engine saturation with respect to a particular search engine is
20%, what does it mean?
a.
20% of the webpages of the website have been indexed by the search engine
b. Only 20% of the pages of the website will be indexed by the search
engine
c. 20% of the websites pages will never be indexed
d. The website ranks in the first 20% of all websites indexed by the
search engine for its most important search terms
- 10 people do a
web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three
of the 10 people choose one particular link. That link then has a
__________ clickthrough rate.
a.
less than 30%
b. 30 percent
c. more than 30%
- Which of the
following factors have an impact on the Google PageRank?
a.
The total number of inbound links to a page of a web site
b. The subject matter of the site providing the inbound link to a page of
a web site
c. The text used to describe the inbound link to a page of a web site
d. The number of outbound links on the page that contains the inbound link
to a page of a web site
- What does the
301 server response code signify?
a.
Not Modified
b. Moved Permanently
c. syntax error in the request
d. Payment is required
e. The request must be authorized before it can take place
- If you enter
'Help site:www.go4expert.com' in the Google search box, what will Google
search for?
a.
It will open up the Google help pages applicable to www.go4expert.com
b. It will find pages about help within www.go4expert.com
c. It will only find page titles about help within www.go4expert.com
d. It will direct you to the request page for re-indexing of
www.go4expert.com
- What is Anchor
Text?
a.
It is the main body of text on a particular web page
b. It is the text within the left or top panel of a web page
c. It is the visible text that is hyper linked to another page
d. It is the most prominent text on the page that the search engines use
to assign a title to the page
- Which of the
following free tools/websites could help you identify which city in the
world has the largest search for the keyword - "six
sigma"?
a.
Yahoo Search Term Suggestion Tool
b. Alexa
c. Google Traffic Estimator
d. Google Trends
e. WordTracker
- What term is
commonly used to describe the shuffling of positions in search engine
results in between major updates?
a.
Waves
b. Flux
c. Shuffling
d. Swaying
- Are RSS/Atom
feeds returned in Google's search results?
a.
Yes
b. No
- Which of the
following statements regarding website content are correct?
a.
If you have two versions of a document on your website, Google recommends
that you only allow the indexing of the better version
b. Linking to a page inconsistently does not affect the way Google views
the page/s. Examples of inconsistent linking could be
http://www.go4expert.com/page/ and http://www.go4expert.com/page and
http://www.go4expert.com/page/index.htm.
c. Syndicating your content could lead to Google viewing the material as
duplicate
d. Placeholders for pages which do not have content are never viewed as
duplicate content by Google
- What does the
term Keyword Prominence refer to?
a.
It refers to the fact that the importance of choosing high traffic
keywords leads to the best return on investment
b. It refers to the importance attached to getting the right keyword
density
c. It refers to the fact that the keywords placed in important parts of a
webpage are given priority by the search engines
d. It refers to the fact that the keywords in bold font are given priority
by the search engines
- What is the term
for Optimization strategies that are in an unknown area of
reputability/validity?
a.
Red hat techniques
b. Silver hat techniques
c. Grey hat techniques
d. Shady hat techniques
- Which of the
following statements is correct with regard to natural links?
a.
They are two way links (reciprocal links)
b. They are from authority websites
c. They are voluntary in nature
d. They are from .edu or .gov extension websites
- Which of the following
can be termed as good keyword selection and placement strategies?
a.
Targeting synonyms of the main keyword
b. Targeting the highest searched keywords only
c. Copying competitor keywords
d. Optimizing five or more keywords per page
- What does the
302 server response code signify?
a.
It signifies conflict, too many people wanted the same file at the same
time
b. The page has been permanently removed
c. The method you are using to access the file is not allowed
d. The page has temporarily moved
e. What you requested is just too big to process
- Which of the
following statements about FFA pages are true?
a.
They are greatly beneficial to SEO
b. They are also called link farms
c. They are paid listings
d. They contain numerous inbound links
- What is the name
of the search engine technology due to which a query for the word 'actor'
will also show search results for related words such as actress, acting or
act?
a.
Spreading
b. Dilating
c. RSD ( )
d. Stemming
e. Branching
- What will the
following robots.txt file do?
User-agent:Googlebot
Disallow:/*?
User-agent:Scooter
Disallow:
a.
It will allow Google to crawl any of the dynamically generated pages. It
will also allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
b. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated
pages. It will also disallow the altavista scooter bot from accessing any
page
c. It will disallow Google from crawling any of the dynamically generated
pages. It will allow the altavista scooter bot to access every page
d. None of the above
- Which of the
following statements about RSS are correct?
a.
It is a form of XML
b. It stands for Realtime streamlined syndication
c. It is a good way of displaying static information
d. It is a microsoft technology
- Which of the
following statements are correct with regard to using javascript within
the web pages?
a.
It uses up the valuable space within the webpage, which should be used for
placing meaningful text for the search engines
b. Search engines cannot read Javascript
c. It is a good idea to shift the Javascript into a separate file
d. Most of the search engines are unable to read links within Javascript
code
- Which of the
following options are correct regarding the Keyword Effectiveness Index
(KEI) of a particular keyword?
a.
It is directly proportional to the popularity of the keyword
b. It is inversely proportional to the competiton for the keyword
c. It is directly proportional to the chances of the keyword ranking on
the first page of the Google search results
- What is the
illegal act of copying of a page by unauthorized parties in order to
filter off traffic to another site called?
a.
Trafficjacking
b. Visitorjacking
c. Viewjacking
d. Pagejacking
- Which of the
following search engines offers a popular list of the top 50 most searched
keywords?
a.
Google
b. Yahoo
c. AOL
d. Lycos
- Which of the
following search engines or directories provides the main search results
for AOL?
a.
Lycos
b. DMOZ
c. Google
d. Yahoo
e. Windows Live
- Which of the
following can be termed as appropriate Keyword Density?
a.
0.01-0.1%
b. 0.1-1%
c. 3-4%
d. 7-10%
e. More than 10%
- The following
robots meta tag directs the search engine bots:
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">
a.
Not to index the homepage and not to follow the links in the page
b. Not to index the page and not to follow the links in the page
c. To index the page and not to follow the links in the page
d. Not to index the page but to follow the links in the page
- What is Keyword
Density?
a.
The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word
count on page - (MINUS)the total words in HTML on the page
b. The number of times the keyword is used X (MULTIPLIED BY) the total
word count on page
c. The number of times the keyword is used in the page description
d. The number of times the keyword is used in the page title
e. The number of times the keyword is used / (DIVIDED BY) the total word
count on the page
- Which of the
following are examples of agents?
a.
Internet Explorer
b. Search engine spiders
c. Opera
d. SQL Server database attached to a website
- If you search
for the term "iq test" in the Word Tracker keyword suggestion
tool, will it return the number of independent searches for the term
"iq"?
a.
Yes
b. No
- Cloaking is a
controversial SEO technique. What does it involve?
a.
Increasing the keyword density on the web pages
b. Offering a different set of web pages to the search engines
c. Hiding the keywords within the webpage
d. Creating multiple pages and hiding them from the website visitors
- Which of the
following facts about Alexa are correct?
a.
Alexa provides free data on relative website visitor traffic
b. Alexa and Quantcast provide information on visitor household incomes
c. Alexa is biased towards US based traffic
d. Quantcast only tracks people who have installed the Quantcast toolbar
This is the last question of your test.
- Google gives
priority to themed in-bound links.
a.
True
b. False
- Which of the
following methods can help you get around the Google Sandbox?
a.
Buying an old Website and getting it ranked
b. Buying a Google Adwords PPC campaign
c. Placing the website on a sub domain of a ranked website and then 301
re-directing the site after it has been indexed
d. Getting a DMOZ listing
- A Hallway Page
is used to:
a.
Attract visitors from the search engines straight onto the Hallway Page
b. Organizes the Doorway Pages
c. Helps people navigate to different Doorway Pages
d. Enables search engine bots to index the Doorway Pages
- Which of the
following options describes the correct meaning of MouseTrapping?
a.
The technique of monitoring the movement of the mouse on the webpage
b. The technique of monitoring the area on which an advertisement was
clicked
c. The web browser trick, which attempts to redirect visitors away from
major websites through a spyware program
d. The web browser trick, which attempts to keep a visitor captive at on a
website
- What is the most
likely time period required for getting a Google page rank?
a.
1 week
b. 3 weeks
c. 2 months
d. More than 3 months
- All major search
engines are case sensitive.
a.
True
b. False
- Which of the
following website design guidelines have been recommended by Google?
a.
Having a clear hierarchy and text links
b. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link
c. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you should break the
site map into separate pages
d. Keeping the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than
100)
e. Use less than 30 images or graphics per page
- How are site
maps important for the search engine optimization process?
a.
Site maps help the search engine editorial staff to quickly go through a
website, hence ensuring quicker placement
b. Google gives credit to the websites having site maps. The GoogleBot
looks for the keyword or title "Site Map" on the home page of a
website.
c. Site maps help the search engine spider pick up more pages from the
website
d. None of the above
- Google looks
down upon paid links for enhancing page rank. If a website sells links,
what action/s does Google recommend to avoid being penalized?
a.
The text of the paid links should state the words "paid text
link" for Google to identify it as a paid link
b. Only Paid text links to non profit websites should be accepted
c. Paid links should be disclosed through the "rel=nofollow"
attribute in the hyperlink
d. Paid links should be disclosed through the "index=nofollow"
attribute in the hyperlink
41.
Answers:
42.
1. a
43.
2. b
44.
3. a
45.
4. b
46.
5. b
47.
6. c
48.
7. d
49.
8. b
50.
9. a
51.
10. a
52.
11. c
53.
12. a
54.
13. c
55.
14. a and d
56.
15. d
57.
16. b
58.
17. d
59.
18. b
60.
19. a
61.
20. c & d
62.
21. a & b
63.
22. d
64.
23. d
65.
24. c
66.
25. c
67.
26. b
68.
27. e
69.
28. b
70.
29. b
71.
30. b
72.
31. a
73.
32. a
74.
33. a
75.
34. d
76.
35. d
77.
36. d
78.
37. b
79.
38. e
80.
39. c
81. 40. C
SEO Test Question for Hiring an SEO:
- What is your name, your email address and
your personal website or blog? (I did this to see if the
applicant had his/her own website or blog. If not, I’d subtract points. If
you’re serious in this field these days, you’ve GOT to have your own
website).
- What search terms have you optimized your
website for? (Again, this is designed to see whether the
applicant had spent any measure of time optimizing his/her site for any
search phrases, or at a minimum: the applicant’s own name).
- How often does Google update its search
algorithm? (In this case, I’m looking to see whether they
understand how many overall algorithm updates are made in a year,
as well as the big ones rolled out from time to time).
- What are the name of the crawlers used by
Google, Yahoo, and Bing (in that order)? (This is not a
make-or-break question but gives me an idea of the technical depth of the
applicant).
- What is PageRank, where did the term
“PageRank” come from, how it is calculated and why is it important?
(Same as above: the way the applicant answers this question demonstrates
his/her understanding of a very important topic).
- What is the difference between white hat
and black hat SEO? (If an applicant doesn’t know the
difference between the two, I would be concerned).
- What is the name of the file you put on
your server to tell a search engine which parts of your website it should
and shouldn’t crawl? (This is a technical and very
important question).
- What is the end goal of a search engine?
What specific task do they try to accomplish? (I want to
see how the applicant’s mind works with this one—I want to make sure the
applicant understands the business model behind a search engine, not just
how it works).
- If you’ve just built a website that didn’t
exist before, what’s the fastest way to make sure it gets indexed in
Google? (I’m proud of this question—it stumped a few
people. The “fastest” is arguably arbitrary, but I don’t care. What
matters is that the applicant knows how to get a website indexed in Google
very quickly.)
- What is a 404 error? (If
the applicant doesn’t know this, I’m really not interested in hiring
them).
- How can you make sure search visitors
don’t see 404 errors after making significant changes to your website’s
URLs? (This one deals with broken links—a very common
occurrence in websites and an Internet Marketer MUST know how to deal with
them properly.)
- What are some of the most important
ON-page factors for search engine rankings? (The “most
important” is fairly arbitrary, but I want to make sure they get the
basics).
- What are some of the most important
OFF-page factors for search engine rankings? (Same as
above).
- If someone shows up at your website and
leaves immediately without clicking on anything, what is that called?
(If you don’t know this, you shouldn’t be applying).
- What kinds of optimization tricks did the
“Panda” algorithm update focus on? Why was it also called the “Farmer”
update? (This shows me how well-versed the applicant is in
SEO news. A good SEO, especially in 2013, should be constantly reading and
staying updates on algorithm changes and updates).
- If you change a URL or move a page, *what
exact kind* of redirect should you use to tell a search engine about the
new URL? (This goes with questions #10 and #11, but here,
I want the SEO-friendly way to implement redirects properly).
- What was the “Penguin” update? How was it
different than the Panda update? (Same as question #15).
- What is the difference between an
algorithm update and a “data refresh”? (Same as question
#15—I need the applicant to demonstrate an understanding of how Google
works internally).
- Create a hypothetical robots.txt file
below, with proper syntax. Tell all bots to crawl the entire website.
(An SEO with a web dev background would ace this. An SEO who is not very
technical would at least give it a shot and get close. A rookie wouldn’t
even know what this means).
- If your website has issues that Google
doesn’t like, where would you be able to get notifications about this?
(It’s important to find out what an Internet Marketer would do if there’s
a problem, and where he/she would look for issues and answers).
- If you receive a notice from Google about
penalties or a unnatural link warning, what is it called when you ask to
be added back to the index? (Same as above).
- Is a sitemap still relevant for search
engines today? If so, which kind(s)? (Similar to #19, I
want to know if the applicant understands the web development side).
- What is anchor text?
(Obvious—you’ve got to know your terminology).
- What’s a “nofollow” tag for links and when
would you use it? (This question is important not only to
show an understanding of what will and won’t get you penalized by Google,
but also because it would show me how long the applicant’s been in the field).
- If you take on an SEO client, how would
you determine who the top three competitors are? (This
question helps me figure out how the applicant would work with a new
client, which is crucial because I want to know the process of how he/she
would work, not just the end product).
- What’s the difference between alt
attributes and titles on a photo? (This one tripped up
most people, surprisingly. People with a web development background should
ace this).
- What’s the most effective thing you’ve
ever tried for SEO, or your proudest moment? (This is the
applicant’s opportunity to brag. I want to hear what they think it
impressive. Also, if there aren’t any success stories, I’d be worried).
- How do you determine which keyword phrases
you want to optimize a website for? (Another
process-related question. The answer is very open-ended, but I want to
hear the applicant thinking out loud).
- How would you define “success” in SEO?
(This is one of the most important questions of all—I need to know what an
applicant thinks the ultimate goal of SEO is, because if it doesn’t match
what clients expect, there’s going
to be trouble).
- Have you ever run into a situation where
you simply couldn’t get any results for a client, or have chosen not to
take on a new client for some reason? Describe that situation in detail,
including how you handled it and your reasoning behind why you made the
decisions you did. (This one is an opportunity for me to
hear how the applicant thinks, not just in SEO, but in dealing with
clients. Also, if he/she said “I’ve never had any problems with any
clients,” my bullshit detector’s siren would start going off).
- What kinds of reports would you give a
client to prove to them that your SEO efforts are succeeding?
(This process-related question helps me understand what the applicant is
going to give the client in terms of deliverables.
This is VERY important to me, because it is NOT good enough to do what
most SEOs do, which is land a new client, get an initial meeting going,
charge them every month but never talk to them again. That’s not how I
work, and that’s not how my replacement was going to work—I was certain of
that).
- Hypothetical Scenario: a client comes into
your office and says “I need better rankings. I’m not ranking highly. Can you help
me?”
Question: what would you say to or ask the client? (This
is like asking someone for their “elevator pitch.” I want to hear in 60
seconds or less how the applicant is going to describe what SEO is, what
he would promise the client, and what kind of questions he would ask the
client. Note: the difference between a good and a GREAT Internet Marketer
is in the questions they
ask the client, in my opinion. Most SEOs don’t ask enough
questions, or they ask the wrong ones. You don’t want the client asking
all the questions).
- What kind of Social Media tactics have you
used in the past and how have they figured into your overall SEO strategy?
(This shows me how social-media savvy the applicant is, which is becoming
a more important tool for SEO every year).
- What is Google Authorship, is it important
for rankings, and if so, why and how? (Nobody got this
question right! This showed me that none of the applicants have really
paid attention to Google’s foray into the world of social integration and
personalization. This wasn’t a deal-breaker, but I was surprised that
nobody knew about it).
What tools and software do you use for
SEO? (There’s no real “wrong” answer to this one—I wanted
to know whether the tools used were old and outdated, or black-hat tools).
Source : Google.Com
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