50 SEO Interview Written Test Questions & Answers
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1.The maximum length of titles displayed in
Google's search result is typically:
A: 155 characters
B: 512 pixels
C: 60-80 Characters
D: 44 Characters
E: Varies by browser resolution
2.In the following HTML snippet: What is considered the anchor text of the
link?
A: http://moz.com
B: SEO
C: Marketing
D: Tools
E: software
3.When is using rel="nofollow" NOT
appropriate?
A: Paid links
B: Untrusted content
C: Press releases with optimized anchor text
D: Widely distributed footer links
E: None; all of these are appropriate
4.Which of the following types of sitemaps is
NOT supported by Google?
A: News
B: Product
C: Image
D: Mobile
E: Video
5.What is the maximum number of URLs typically
allowed in an XML sitemap file?
A: 500
C: 50,000
D: 500,000
E: 5,000,000
6.In the following URL:
http://store.example.com/category/keyword?id=123#top "store"
represents the ____ and "com" is the ________
A: Subdomain, Top-Level Domain
B: Root Domain, Subdomain
C: Subfolder, Top-Level Domain
D: Page, Root Domain
E: Top-Level Domain, Protocol
7.What is the optimal HTTP status code to
permanently remove a URL from Google's index?
A: 301
B: 302
C: 404
D: 410
E: 500
8.Which HTTP status code is best to serve when
your site is down for maintence?
A: 200
B: 302
C: 404
D: 503
E: 90210
9.True or false: A 301 redirect passes roughly
the same link equity as using the rel="canonical" tag.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
10.Which of the following would be the best
choice of URL structure (for both search engines and humans)?
A: www.wildlifeonline.com/animals/crocodile
B: www.wildlifeonline.com/category/277/article/563
C: www.wildlifeonline.com/O0665?id=563&cat=277
D: text.wildlifeonline.com/category/crocodile
E: www.wildlifeonline.com/563
11.How can meta description tags help with the
practice of search engine optimization?
A: They're an important ranking factor in the
search algorithms.
B: They help to tell the search engines which
keywords are most important on your page.
C: They serve as the copy that will
entice searchers to click on your listing.
D: Trick question; meta descriptions are NOT
important.
12.The de-facto version of a page located on
the primary URL you want associated with the content is known as:
A: Canonical Version
B: Empirical Version
C: Heretical Version
D: Preferential Version
E: Home Page
13.Which HTTP server response code indicates a
file that no longer exists? (File Not Found)
A: 500
B: 301
C: 401
D: 404
E: 300
14.Which HTTP server response code indicates a
page that has been permanently relocated and all links to the old page will
pass their influence to the new page location?
A: 302
B: 301
C: 311
D: 500
E: 300
15.If you want a page to pass value through
its links, but stay out of the search engines' indices, which of the following
tags should you place in the header?
A: NOINDEX,
FOLLOW
B: NOODP
C: INDEX, NOFOLLOW
D: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW
E: INDEX, FOLLOW
16.If these URLs have the same content,
example.com/avocado and example.com/avocado/ are technically considered
duplicate content and should be fixed.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
17.Which of the following methods is best used
to handle duplicate-content URLs that include parameters or tracking code?
A: The rel="canonical" tag
B: Use numbers for your parameters, because
Google won't crawl numbered URLs
C: Use the robots.txt file to block spiders from
crawling the URLs with extra parameters
D: Answers A and B
E: None of the above
18.If you have a page at
www.example.com/page1, which of the following robots.txt directives prevents
search spiders from crawling the URL?
A: Allow: /
B: Disallow:
C: Disallow:
/page1
D: Both A & C
19.You decide to add a blog to your ecommerce
site. What is the preferred url structure?
A: www.example.com/blog
B: www.blog.example.com/
C: Create new site at www.blog.com and link it to
www.example.com
20.High-quality links to a site's homepage may
help to increase the ranking ability of deeper pages on the same domain.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
21.Pages generated by search results (Search
within Search) are a good way to add content to your site.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
22.Google's Panda update was also known as the
______ update.
A: Quality
B: May Day
C: Farmer
D: Vince
E: Caffeine
23.In general, internal links pass about the
same value as external links.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
24.Which of the following links is likely to
pass the most value from a single page?
A: A universal footer link
B: A navigational link contained in the header
C: A left-hand navigation link
D: A right sidebar navigation link
E: A
link contained in the main body text
25.What link format is used to fight blog
comment spam?
A: rel="canonical"
B: rel="follow"
C: rel="author"
D: rel="nofollow"
E: rel="attribute"
26.To give credit for duplicate content that
appears on another site, use...
A: A
cross-domain canonical tag
B: A prominent link within the content at the top
of the page
C: File a DMCA copyright notice
D: Give the author thanks in the body of the text
E: Send them ice cream
27.If a page includes more than one
rel="canonical", Google will...
A: Ignore
them all
B: Count the first one
C: Count the last one
D: Guess which one makes more sense, and use that
one
28.Best practices for
rel="canonical" link elements include:
A: Relative URLs
B: Absolute
URLs
C: Nofollow the link element
29.What is an example of a "soft"
404 error?
A: A page that returns a 404 HTTP response code,
but quickly changes to a 200 a short time later.
B: A page that returns a 200 HTTP response code,
and displays a blank page.
C: A page that displays a 404 HTTP response code,
and displays a 404 error page.
D: A page that returns a 404 code with pillows.
30.The X-Robots-Tag should be located:
A: In your robots.txt file
B: In the
C: In
the HTTP headers
D: Anywhere inside the element
E: In Robert Downey Jr.'s basement
31.If the robots tag is missing,
the default is:
A: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW
B: INDEX,
FOLLOW
C: NOINDEX, FOLLOW
D: INDEX, NOFOLLOW
E: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW, NOARCHIVE
32.The default file type for your sitemap is:
A: .pdf
B: .php
C: .png
D: .doc
E: .xml
33.The minimum REQUIRED tags in an XML sitemap
include:
A:
B:
C:
D: None of these
E: A,
B, and C
34.When including Open Graph (OG) tags on a
webpage, which of the following is NOT a required property?
A: og:title
B: og:description
C: og:image
D: og:url
E: og:type
35.True or false: For best results,
incorporate authorship markup on every page of your website, including the
homepage and category pages.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
36.All other factors being equal, which would
be the most desirable link profile?
A: One
link from each of 100 different domains
B: 1,000 links all from one domain
C: 10,000 internal links
37.Which group of ranking factors do SEOs
generally consider to have the largest influence on rankings?
A: Engagement Metrics
B: Social shares
C: Link-based
metrics
D: Site speed
E: Exact match domains
38.Generally, Google refreshes its Panda data:
A: Daily
B: Weekly
C: Monthly
D: Yearly
E: Never
39.Google's recommended format to implement
structured data is:
A: Microdata
/ Schema.org
B: Microformats / vcards
C: RDFa / XHTML
40.Implementing structured data may help:
A: Lead to rich snippets in search results
B: Enchance CTR from search engine results
C: Search engines understand your content
D: Your content to appear in specialized search
results like "in-depth Articles"
E: All
of these
41.Implementing authorship on your content:
A: Guarantees a rankings boost through Author
Rank
B: Disassociates your content from spam
C: Prevents duplicate content
D: May
lead to enhanced CTR through authorship photos in search results
E: Helps get you that book deal
42.Google's recommended actions for paginated
content include:
A: Specify a "view all" page
B: rel="prev" and rel="next"
C: Do nothing
D: A and B only
E: A,
B, or C
43.In the following attribute:
hreflang="en-US", "en" is the _____ and "US" is
the _____.
A: alternate, language
B: language,
region
C: United States, English
D: region, language
E: entire, universal symbol
44.Which element of a link does Google NOT
consider?
A: The relationship/ownership/influence of the
linking domain and linked-to domain
B: The rel="nofollow" attribute
C: The domain on which the linking page is hosted
D: The
HTML attribute
45.Which of the following statements about
anchor text is true?
A: For non-commercial queries, anchor text is
less influential on a result's rankings.
B: If a URL itself is the linking anchor text,
Google will treat the page's title element as anchor text, while Bing will use
the URL.
C: When
an embedded image is linking, the alt attribute of the image may be treated as
anchor text.
D: Anchor text is mostly ignored by Google in
2014, but was powerful in years past.
46.Google+ influences Google's search results
in which of the following ways:
A: For logged-in searchers, webpages that have
been shared or +1'd by people you follow may appear higher in the results
B: For logged-in searchers, webpages that have
been shared or +1'd by people who follow you will appear higher in the results
C: Those with Google+ accounts can connect them
to their published works to nudge Google search to show authorship next to
their pages in the results
D: Options A & B are both true
E: Options
A & C are both true
47.What does the phrase "social shares
and higher search rankings in Google are well-correlated" mean?"
A: It means there's a chance (as expressed by the
correlation coefficient number) that this input is used in Google's ranking
algorithm.
B: It means that the more social shares a webpage
has, the higher it appears in Google's search results for a given query.
C: It
means that, on average, pages with more social shares appear higher in Google
rankings than those with fewer shares. The correlation coefficient expresses
the degree with which this occurs.
D: It means that social shares may or may not be
used by Google's algorithm to rank webpages.
48.Which Google update was closely associated
with speed, faster indexing and fresher web results.
A: Penguine
B: Panda
C: Venice
D: Vince
E: Caffeine
49.What are valid reasons why your webpage's
title may not appear in Google's search results exactly as it does in the page
title element in your HTML?
A: Google has overwritten your title element with
a title taken from the Yahoo! Directory.
B: Your
title does not contain your brand name or other key terms in the users' search
query (or doesn't include them at the start of the title element), so Google is
using text from elsewhere on the page.
C: Google is pulling a title for your webpage
from one you entered into an AdWords ad for that URL (that produces a higher
clickthrough rate).
D: Your page contains the meta
"title-h1" tag specifying that Google should use the text within the
H1 in place of the title element for the search results listing
E: Both options B & D
50.Which of the following are true about the
growth of mobile vs. desktop search in Google?
A: Mobile search queries overtook desktop in 2013
and are expected to continue growing faster.
B: Desktop search queries are now shrinking, and
mobile is growing, but will not overtake desktop in the next 2-3 years.
C: Both
desktop and mobile are growing, but mobile is growing faster and is expected to
overtake desktop in the next 1-2 years.
D: Desktop is not growing (but not shrinking
much). Mobile is expected to overake desktop in number of queries by 2016.