Wednesday, 6 May 2015

SEO Interview Questions & Answers online

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

Ans: B
In the following HTML snippet: <a href="http://moz.com" title="SEO"><img src="img/software.jpg" alt="Marketing" title="Tools" width="100" weight="100"></a> What is considered the anchor text of the link?
A: http://moz.com
B: SEO
C: Marketing
D: Tools
E: software

Ans: C
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

Ans: E

Which of the following types of sitemaps is NOT supported by Google?
A: News
B: Product
C: Image
D: Mobile
E: Video

Ans: B

What is the maximum number of URLs typically allowed in an XML sitemap file?
A: 500
B: 5,000
C: 50,000
D: 500,000
E: 5,000,000

Ans: C
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

Ans: A

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

Ans: D
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
Ans: D

True or false: A 301 redirect passes roughly the same link equity as using the rel="canonical" tag.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
Ans: A
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

Ans: A

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.

Ans: C
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

Ans: A
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

Ans: D
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

Ans: B
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
Ans: A
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
Ans: A
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
Ans: A
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
Ans: C


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
Ans: A

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
Ans: A

Pages generated by search results (Search within Search) are a good way to add content to your site.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
Ans: B

Google's Panda update was also known as the ______ update.
A: Quality
B: May Day
C: Farmer
D: Vince
E: Caffeine
Ans: C

In general, internal links pass about the same value as external links.
A: TRUE
B: FALSE
Ans: B

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
Ans: E

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"
Ans: D
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
Ans: A
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
Ans: A
Best practices for rel="canonical" link elements include:
A: Relative URLs
B: Absolute URLs
C: Nofollow the link element
Ans: B
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.
Ans: B
The X-Robots-Tag should be located:
A: In your robots.txt file
B: In the <head>
C: In the HTTP headers
D: Anywhere inside the <body> element
E: In Robert Downey Jr.'s basement
Ans: C
Of the following, the best way to keep a URL from appearing in search results is:
A: Block robots from crawling the page in the robots.txt file
B: Nofollow all links to the page
C: Use the META robots NOODP tag
D: Use the META robots NOINDEX tag
Ans: D
If the robots <META> tag is missing, the default is:
A: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW
B: INDEX, FOLLOW
C: NOINDEX, FOLLOW
D: INDEX, NOFOLLOW
E: NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW, NOARCHIVE
Ans: B
The default file type for your sitemap is:
A: .pdf
B: .php
C: .png
D: .doc
E: .xml
Ans: E

The minimum REQUIRED tags in an XML sitemap include:
A: <urlset>
B: <url>
C: <loc>
D: None of these
E: A, B, and C
Ans: E
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
Ans: B

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
Ans: B
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
Ans: A
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
Ans: C
Generally, Google refreshes its Panda data:
A: Daily
B: Weekly
C: Monthly
D: Yearly
E: Never
Ans: C

Google's recommended format to implement structured data is:
A: Microdata / Schema.org
B: Microformats / vcards
C: RDFa / XHTML
Ans: A
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
Ans: E
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
Ans: B

Which of the following URL structures is NOT recommended to signal language targeting?
A: ccTLDs (example.de)
B: Subdomains with gTLDS (de.example.com)
C: URL parameters (example.com?loc=de)
D: Subdirectories with gTLDs (example.com/de)
Ans: C
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 <id> attribute
Ans: D
Which type of link has NOT been mentioned by Google as being risky for SEO?
A: Embedded links from infographics
B: Guest blog posts
C: Text link advertisements with rel="nofollow"
D: Article submission and directory sites
Ans: C