What is a Search Engine?/How does search engine works?
A
search engine enables the user
to search for specific answers, news, or details by way of the World Wide Web.
Results are called SERPs – an acronym for search engine results pages. The info
you obtain typically is made up of web pages or images. Updated information is mined
by search engines as well from such sources as directories and databases. Real
time computing is utilized, which provides reliable timely information via an
algorithm running on a web crawler.
Examples
of general, well-known search engines include Google, Bing and Yahoo. Data can
also be obtained by using metasearch engines which send inquiries for
information to several databases or search engines. Some examples of metasearch
engines include Dogpile, LeapFish, and Info.com. Search engines are also designed
to fish for information under specific categories as well, some of which
include subject data for Food/Recipes, Mobile applications, Jobs, Legal or
Medical information, People, Real Estate, and types of information such as
emails, multimedia sources, and blogs.
What are Meta
Tags?
HTML Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that are
inserted in a web page’s header, and come after the title tag. The title tag
itself is one of the essential components used in obtaining a high ranking in
the SERPs. That’s because the words of the title tag are shown on the clickable
links of the SERPs. So, making an adjustment with the wording can cause you to
obtain more click-throughs. For SEO purposes, meta tags are labeled as meta keyword tags and meta
descriptions tags. These tags are invisible to the user and are
used to supply data or directions to the search engines in order to access
information.So, in essence, a meta tag is a statement used for HTML (Hypertext
Markup Language) that defines some of the content on a web page. The meta tag
is necessary in order to index the page so people needing access to the
information provided on the web page can easily locate it. While there are a
variety of meta tags used, when it comes to indexing, the meta tags for the
description and keywords are the most important – all essential information for
describing a page’s contents. Usually, the description meta tag is comprised of
a short review of one or two sentences about a page’s content. By using good
meta tags then, you can increase your page’s popularity in the SERPs.
Why is a
Robots.txt File Used?/ Robots.txt: What it is, Why it’s Used?
A Robts.txt
File is used to prevent the indexing of duplicate content on a website or for
implementing a no follow rule in an area of a website. Martijn Koster invented
this file in the early part of the 90s – the file used more and more with the
development well-known search engines as time progressed.
How to use Robot.txt file ?
Therefore,
if a webmaster or an owner of a website wants to direct the web robots, he must
establish the Robots.txt file and provide exact directions for robots to read
before accessing other files on the site. If the file is not used, the web
robots will simply conclude that no explicit instructions are available for the
site. Also, If the website has more than one subdomain, then a Robots.txt. file
must be used for each of the subdomains.
Title Tag SEO
Importance? / What is the Value of Using Title Tags in a Website?
Title tags influence your SEO initiatives, so they are
considered highly important in how well your web site does in the search engine
rankings. Title tags show up in search engine result listings and play a key
role in how your web site is received. In fact, title tags are as important to
your site’s popularity as are the links directed to your web pages and the
content on your site. While SEO professionals understand title tag seo
importance, this key factor is often bypassed by owners of websites when they
are trying to optimize their sites.Especially for businesses, title tags are
necessary in drawing customers to a website. It’s not enough to insert your
company name in the title tag though. You also want it to include certain
keyword phrases too. For instance, if you are a tax specialist and are the
owner of an accounting firm in India, you’ll need to conduct some keyword
research to find the most appropriate phrases for your business. In this
instance, you may want to include such search phrases as Accountants in India
or include a modifier that includes your city’s location, such as, say,Delhi or
Noida.
What is Cloaking
SEO? / Why Should You Not Cloak a Web Site?
Cloaking is a method used by
experts who practice black hat SEO to fool the search engines. In other words,
the search engines are shown one kind of version of a website while the users
visiting the site do not see the same page. This type of practice was more
prevalent around ten years ago when Google’s filters were not as adept at
catching the offenders. Typically, cloaking was used when a web page was not
ranking all that high. Therefore, another page was developed for the bots to
crawl.Fortunately, anyone who wants to practice cloaking today will usually get
caught, which really would not be worth it, considering that most pages can
obtain a ranking even when less popular keywords are used. Plus, Google is well
aware of the practice, so to take the chance of getting banned by using this
approach would be unconscionable if not foolish.
Domain Extensions
– Do They Matter in SEO Ranking?/
Domain Extensions are used in domains or URLs to
signify the type of website. The most common extension, .com, denotes the word
commercial and is used the most worldwide. The .net extension is short for network
while .org, means organization (used mainly by nonprofits). The .biz extension
represents small business URLs while the .info extension is used for resource
sites. The.mobi extension is used for sites on mobile devices, and .us, which
is the country code for the U.S., has the most available domain names on
inventory.
Does Domain
Extension Affect Ranking?
Contrary to popular belief, domain extensions do not
affect a website’s ranking for purposes of SEO. The one exception to this rule
are extensions that include country codes when they are used in other
countries. For example, if your domain includes .us, that extension will not
rank so well in countries outside the United States., which could possibly be
the reason there are an excess number of .us domains available. If you are
choosing a domain extension then, do so for reasons besides SEO. Instead, you
want to focus on inserting your primary keyword in the domain name.
What is your
favorite aspect of SEO?
If you answer the interviewer that Link building is your
favorite part in SEO, the interviewer would have made up 75% of his mind to
recruit you 
. But the reality is for
most people it isn’t, as Link Building is one of the most difficult aspect of
SEO.For most SEO’s who are also good Content Writers, Writing Unique Content
would be their favorites part.
. But the reality is for
most people it isn’t, as Link Building is one of the most difficult aspect of
SEO.For most SEO’s who are also good Content Writers, Writing Unique Content
would be their favorites part.
For others it could be one or more of the following;
- On-Page
Optimization
- Off-Page
Optimization
- Keyword
Research
- Forums
Posting
- Article
Writing
- Blog
Posting
- Classified
Posting
- Link
Exchange
- Social
Bookmarking
- Blog
Commenting
- Press
Release (PR) Submission
What is the most
difficult aspect of SEO for you?
If
you ask me “What part of SEO process is most difficult?”, I would say –
Off-Page Optimization. Now that’s a very broad topic in itself in SEO. If you
ask me “What Part of the Off-Page SEO Process is Hardest for You?”, It is Link Building for me.
Acquisition of Quality Inbound Links / Generating Quality Back Links is
one of the toughest parts of SEO Process most SEO Experts face today. Here I am
talking Quality and not Quantity. If it’s not done properly your site can
even get penalized. When I interviewed a couple of SEO Guys asking them this
question, some told me “Keyword Research”!!! I wonder why
because that’s one of the most interesting steps in your campaign
when you are actually learning what your client’s site is all about.
What is your favorite
SEO website/blog, and Why? / What is your favorite SEO or Internet marketing
blog?
Here is a good list of SEO Blogs/Websites that I
have subscribed to via Rss feed that gets delivered to
my Mailbox every day. The first thing I do before I start my regular SEO
Work is to take a look at all these mails. You may also follow the right
people on Twitter/Facebook and you’ll have a ton of great SEO information that
is both relevant and up to date.
Favorite Websites for Internet Marketing and SEO tips
For SEO:
- SEO Book
- Matt
Cutts
- SEOMoz
Blog
- Seer
Interactive
- Google
Webmaster Tools Blog
- Search
Engine Land
- Search
Engine Journal
- Top Rank Blog
What has been your
Biggest Mistake in Optimizing a Website for Search Engines?
I am not going to discuss my biggest mistakes
in optimizing a website for search engines. As this is
an interview question, it does not matter what mistakes I have made
in the past. The answer to this question is solely from your experience.
Well, Let me discuss the common mistakes SEO Beginners do
when optimizing a website for search engines;
- Acquiring Low
Quality Backlinks too fast
- Link
Building with the Same Anchor Text
- Wrong
Keyword Selection
- Competing
only on High Competitive Keywords
- Keyword Stuffing on Web-pages
- Over
Optimization of web site
Is there a Google
SEO Guide or Any Recommended Google SEO Tools?
The
secret to successful web marketing is by means of adopting the right strategy
of Google SEO methods. Most of the
website developers try to match the best possible solution, to reach the
targeted audience with SEO tools.The use of simple SEO algorithm helps to stay
afloat for most of the program developers. They affect the sites and to bring
about huge turn over’s or inflate the overall system. It is a quest to use
Google product effectively and to determine the working methods of the
algorithm. The search engine optimization tools helps to increase the site
traffic and thereby immense revenue growth is achieved. A lot of innovations
are still being worked to make the Google product perform better. The basic
knowledge of using the related links and keywords to make them more visible to
the user pays off well at the end. The search engine optimization is
manipulated to work on the basis of a human mind. It is very simple with the
kind of tools that are available on the net to make the link visible in every
possible way.
Key tracker and key
list generators are excellent Google SEO
Tools for increasing site trafficking. To think simple and
tackle the problem logically is the keynote of the innovations done by Google
in the field of SEO.
What Analytics
Packages have you used?
I primarily use Google Analytics for Serious SEO
Research. The best part about Google Analytics is its Completely FREE. For my
Blogs, I just use Jetpack’s WordPress Stats as that is detailed enough too.
There are several others though. Here are 10 Other Web Analytics Tools For
Tracking Your Visitors.
Do you have a Sample
SEO Campaign Plan?
This
is one Sample SEO Campaign Plan
I use for my clients.To begin with I perform the keyword analysis, which is the hardest and most
critical step of any SEO Campaigns. This is nothing but choosing the right
keywords/phrases (relevant keywords) for a particular website for which you
desire SERP’s. There are several tools that can help you with your keyword
research, but my personalrecommendation is wordtracker. If you are looking for
a free tool, I recommend the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. These tools give you
search volumes and assist with helping you see what the competition is
targeting on their website and which are the most popular phrases relative to
your business. Further competitive analysis
of related sites can help you determine what keywords are highly used.Secondly,
I perform a website review
and make a list of non seo friendly elements that are present in the existing
site such as:-
- Missing
Title / Description / Keywords Tags.
- Broken
Links
- Flash
Content
- Pop-up
ads
- Less
content in a page
- Excessive
use of JavaScript
- Optimized
Doorway pages or Automatic Generated pages using tools like WebPosition
Gold
Then I contact the
client to check whether they are really required for the site.Thirdly I Edit
Title & Meta Tags to make sure every page in the site has a
unique, relevant TITLE and DESCRIPTION tag. According to Matt Cutts, Google no
longer takes the meta keyword placements as an important part of the seo
process in getting your website found in the search results. Nevertheless it
should not be skipped as most major search engines still use them.Fourthly I
perform On Page Optimization (Edit content) for placement of
selected keyword phrases in the right places on the web page. But this does not
mean writing for the search engines and excessive use of keywords that makes it
hard for a visitor to comprehend. By adding more content focusing on some
missing keywords, you’ll likely help visitors and improve keyword ranking at
the same time.
Some On Page Optimization activities include;- Using
Headers Text i.e. Titles and Subtitles using H1, H2, H3 font etc with the
most important keywords.
- Alt tags
– Using alt tags on the images incorporating your top phrase.
Next I perform the Off
Page Optimization. The most important part of this step is the Link
Analysis which includes both internal links as well backlinks analysis. In
this step we check if important keywords are present as anchor text in a
link for internal links. To build backlinks, one of the ways is you can
contact related sites and request a link exchange.Based on the seo
campaign budjet I also include one or more of the following in the plan to help
in external link building
2. Press Releases
Next I perform the Search
Engine & Directory Submission. I perform a manual search engine
submission to Top Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing . Then I use
IBP (iBusinessPromoter) to submit the site to as many search engines as
possible. Depending on the SEO Campaign cost I contact the client to
check if paid ‘express’ services can be used on directories and search engines,
some of which only offer paid URL submission.Links on Social
bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit or StumbleUpon give a huge
surge in traffic depending on the popularity of the social bookmarking website
and the popularity of the content. The better the content available from
visiting the link the better the chance it has to being popular amongst the
members of the website which means content is vital for success.Final Step in
the SEO Campaign is the SEO Campaign Management or in other
words Report Generation. Create a Site traffic Report and keep track of the
search engine optimization as an ongoing project and generate monthly reports
for the client that shows keyword rankings, link popularity etc.
How to Increase
Google Page Rank?
If you are looking to increase your Google Page Rank,
you need to do Quality link building. Quality Link Building is
nothing but building quality dofollow back links from higher PR sources,
especially from those niche relative authority sources.Having your link on
those websites which have more PR than yours would do good, but PR gets divided
among the number of links over there. So look outfor those websites which are
having a Good Google PR and less outbound links (both internal and external).
Some ways that you can get good Quality Links are
- Article
submission
- Blog
Commenting (Do Follow Blogs)
- Forum
posting
- Classified
ads
- Press
releases
- Link
Exchange to relevant sites
- Social
bookmarking (Sites like HubPage & squidoo are popular)
What SEO tools do
you regularly use?
I primarily use Google Analytics. Apart from that
some of the tools that I use are;
- Keyword
Analysis Tools / Keyword Research Tools (DP keyword
suggestion tool & Google Keyword Suggestion Tool are popular)
- Keyword
Density Tools
- Index
Checking
- Backlink
Checking
- HTML
validation Tools (W3C HTML Validation Service –
validator.w3.org/ )
- Google
Pagerank Checker (Google Toolbar)
- Google Webmasters Tool (along with Yahoo Webmasters Tool)
- XML
Sitemap Generator
- Search
Engine Submitters (IBP is good)
If you have a limited budget, Google webmaster tools, Google
Analytics and SEO for Firefox should be sufficient. If you are using a CMS like
WordPress, they come with a whole lot of SEO Plugins that are completely Free.
What is the
difference between SEO and SEM?
SEO vs. SEM
SEO
is Search Engine Optimization and is the process you use in
getting better search engine ranking results for your pages. Typical SEO
activities may include optimising the HTML and other content of your website
for relevant, targeted key phrases in order to attain higher organic listings
than competing websites.
SEM is
Search Engine Marketing and involves purchasing advertising
space on search engine result pages like Sponsored listings (that you see at
the top in a Google Search Engine Results Page). You generally use SEM via Paid
Inclusion into a search engine/directory, Traditional Ads on SERP’s and via
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising (Google Adwords, Yahoo Ad Campaign etc).
Both are related in
a way that both work towards increasing traffic to your site. Nevertheless, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site
as Good SEO would avoid you to spend additional money on advertising and paid
placement.
Why does Google
Rank Wikipedia for so many topics?
Google considers Wikipedia
as an established authority site for any area. It has relevant
content on million of subjects that are constantly updated or added to and has
millions of people linking to it and referring to it.Each article is
cross-linked to a lot of other articles that are relevant (Good Internal
Linking Structure). As such, it is referenced by huge numbers of other
documents or sites with relevant text associated with links back to Wikipedia.
SEO Certification.
Are you SEO Certified Professional?
I
have seen many companies offering SEO
Certification, but I personally think it’s not required. A
certification might help a new comer prove his knowledge of SEO skills to a
potential client, but in the long run what matters is showing proven results to
your clients and getting appreciated via testimonials
or any other means.None of my clients have asked me, if I had any certification
and I wouldn’t do it to impress my clients. “All they care about is, will they
be in the top 10 or not.”I would rather perform SEO on some of my own sites and
maintain case studies for the same. Also I
would look on enhancing my seo experience by regularly visiting webmaster
forums (Sitepoint, digitalpoint etc).
How to Get SEO
Projects?
You might be an Internet Marketing and SEO Expert. But how
do you sell yourself in this seo world of competition. There may be plenty of
SEO freelancers / Consultants who are facing International competition and
offer SEO Packages for little money.
Some ways I took towards SEO Consultancy are;
- Become
a member of various freelance websites like elance, odesk,
allfreelance.com, getafreelancer.com, project4hire.com etc.
- Besides
online freelancer sites as mentioned above, participate in various SEO
Forums like Sitepoint, Digitalpoint etc and offer your valuable inputs on
various threads.
- You
can also offer/advertise your services on various webmaster forums like
sitepoint, warrior forums, digitalpoint etc.
- Lastly,
visit some small websites and analyze their website Meta tags in order to
determine if they have already hired someone. If not, get back to them
saying you would perform minimal SEO for free and if they are happy you
can do Advanced SEO and link Building etc for a low price and increase
their Web Traffic an Online Presence.
What Is a Sitemap?
Sitemap provides a listing of pages on a website.
By creating a Sitemap and submitting it to Google, the webmaster ensures that
the search engine will have all the needed details about a site. That way,
Google will be able to find URLs that cannot be found when Googlebot crawls the
web.A Sitemap is also a practical reference to Google for providing metadata
about certain kinds of content, including images, news, mobile and video. For
instance, in putting data regarding an image can alert Google as to the topic
of the photo, license, and type. A Sitemap also is used to indicate when the
content on a site is changed or how often it will be altered.A Sitemap is
especially useful for sites that feature images that may be hard to find by
Googlebot or contain pages that aren’t linked or have few included links. Sites
that contain compelling information or content can also benefit by the creation
of a Sitemap. As a result, the information provided by a Sitemap enables Google
to assess the framework of a site and better crawl a site
What do you think of using XML sitemaps?
XML Sitemaps are important. It helps search engines
crawling your site and articles. Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask support the
Sitemaps protocol that lets the four biggest search engines have the updated
page information. Sitemaps do not guarantee all links will be crawled, and
being crawled does not guarantee indexing.
Most importantly,
when you have a site that is not crawlable for some reason. Using an XML
sitemap will help the search engines know about and discover your URLs on your
site that they could not find due to your site’s crawlablity issues.Also, when
you have a site with 1000′s of URLs, using an XML sitemap allows you to set
priorities of your URLs so Google and other engines know which URLs you feel
are most important and should be indexed first before indexing other URLs on
your site.
Who is Matt Cutts?
Matt Cutts works for the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues. He is well
known in the SEO community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines and
cracking down on link spam. Cutts also advises the public on how to get better
website visibility in Google.
Matt
Cutts joined Google as a software
engineer in January 2000. currently the
head of Google’s Webspam team.Before Google, He worked on my Ph.D. in computer
graphics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. he has an M.S.
from UNC-Chapel Hill, and B.S. degrees in both mathematics and computer science
from the University of Kentucky.He wrote the first version of SafeSearch, which
is Google’s family filter, and he has worked on search quality and webspam at
Google for the last several years.
Can you write HTML
Code?
Yes. An SEO
Guy needs to have minimal knowledge of HTML and CSS to perform his tasks
better. I sometimes use notepad for my html work, if its just simple html
modification.For my regular work, I use web editors like Frontpage as it does a
lot of trivial html code auto generation and thereby saves my time to perform
more important tasks.
Give me a
description of your general SEO experience?
My
SEO Experience has been great
as I am very passionate about Blogging and Online SEO Marketing. These are
somethings I do on a day to day basis.First and more important than SEO is to,
write good content (Unique Content).I have in the past developed many sites
that I am passionate about and interests me, and ofcource ideally something
that people spend money on. My best niche has always been Sports and that is
best suited for SEO as each event sports article becomes eligible for Search
Engine Optimization. After creating the articles, i stumble, digg, facebook,
and mixx my articles. These I do get found by like minded people besides
regular Search Engine Submissions.Then I join forums and post a bit,
participate in discussions, and share my site in the signature link.Usually I
spend about 15 min to 60 min a day to do well for an important post and
sometimes don’t do it at all for a lesser important article as too much SEO is
also bad for a site.
Note: For a
new blog, register your blog to the major search engines (Google, yahoo and
msn). Submit to dmoz.org once the site is about 1 year old with credible
content.
How to create an
SEO Friendly Website Design Structure?
SEO Friendly Website
Structure
Here is a list of the most important things necessary for Creating
SEO Friendly Website Design
- Avoid
using Flash as Search Engine Spiders Don’t Index Flash.
However, if its absolutely necessary you must include an alternative
textual description for your Flash file.
- Avoid
using Frames as None of the content inside of your frames is
indexable by the Search Engine Spiders. However, if its absolutely
necessary you must use a <NOFRAMES> tag so that the search
engine spiders can index at least some of your content.
- Filenames and Folders must containt important keywords.
- CSS
drop down navigation (Avoid Javascript or Flash); CSS stylesheets. By
using CSS Navigation Menus, the Search Engine Spiders will be able to
index and follow the hyperlinks in your menu. SEO
Tip: Use a multi-level CSS drop down navigational menu, so that you
include as many links as possible in your navigation menu.
- Make
sure your anchor text contains important keywords
How many Target
Keywords should a Site have?
There
is no perfect number to this question of “How Many
Terms/Phrases Should You Target on a Single Page“? What I mean is
there is no general rule or best solution. It really depends on the
website and on how competitive those keywords/phrases are to begin with, I
primarily focus on 2 or 3 main key words for SEO of my client’s page. Once
you establish on these primary keywords get on to focus on long
tail secondary keywords.
Why Is My Site Not
Ranking in the Search Engines? / Why my site is not ranking for particular keyword? / You may ask yourself , Why is My Website Not Ranking Well Even
Though you are Doing SEO?
It
depends on the keywords, backlinks, site age, site content and your
competitors. The use of CSS alone does not help a site rank, but the
cleanliness and ease of site navigation that helps. Search engines love good
navigation, ease of use and readability for a visitor.
Focus on Quality Content
Put
your energy and time to include quality content in your site. The content
should drive people to come to your page day after day or week after week to
see new updated content
What is the most important “Ranking Factor”
that you as SEO experts come across?
There is no one most important “ranking factor” that SEO
experts have come across?. We (SEO’s in General) find that the META “Title
Tag” is the most important one!. However there are others that are
equally important Ranking factors for SEO as well such as;
- Site
Content and Relevancy
- Quality
backlinks
- Meta
description
- Keyword
Density
- URL
string itself
How to Achieve
Google PageRank?
Google
PageRank is based on incoming relevant and quality backlinks. Please note that
it is just not the number but the relevance and quality of incoming links from
authority sites that make up for the Pagerank.A PageRank is a value that is
assigned to a page on the web, indicating its popularity. In order to achieve a
top page rank listing, you must be well-skilled in the practices of link
building. That’s because Google gauges PageRank on how pages are linked.
Therefore, if one credible page is linked to another, it is an indicator that
the linking page considers that page important. As a result, PageRank is
Google’s method of determining a page’s popularity. Therefore, the PageRank is
a deciding factor in a page’s ranking in the SERPs or search engine page
results.To see your web page listed at the top then, you must have several
links linking to your web page that are considered well-regarded or popular
too. While PageRank is not the only component in determining a page’s
importance or popularity, it certainly is a major qualifier. PageRank is also
referred to as “PR” as well.Again, links that link to your page or site must be
considered credible in order to boost the PageRank on a site. In certain
instances, some links can hurt a site’s overall PR, particularly if the website
owner links out to sites that are not considered to be valuable. So, while you
can’t help what sites may link to your blog or website, you do have control
over the sites to which you are linking – an important consideration in
establishing links and maintaining a good PR.Google has a high regard for sites
that have a lot of incoming links, a good deal of valuable content, and a large
number of pages and internal links. In addition, the age of the site is
factored into the equation too.
Are their SEO
principles for Ranking in Google Shopping Results?
SEO for Google Search and Listings
in Google Product Search are completely different and not related to one
another in any way. You might rank in the First page for various products of
your ecommerce store but the same products might not be the case for those
products in Google Product Searches.Google products is more about the products
attributes and their values of the feed file that you submit to your Google
Merchant Center.
You certainly need to follow best
practices of SEO event for your product feed attributes and values;
- Google Title with keywords placed strategically
- Keyword Rich Description
- Price your products cheaper than your competition
- Regular Updation of Feed
- Add as many attributes to your feed as
possible if if they are optional.
.CO vs .Com SEO?
Google does differentiate between domain TLDs .com and
.co. For both the domains It depends on incoming links and the way you optimize
the site. However .COM is highly trusted and .co is less popular (which doesn’t
necessarily mean it will do worse in search engine ranking results but its
unlikely to do better). It appears that .COM is the most preferable Domain
Extension keeping SEO in mind.
Robots.txt: Is
Blocking Googlebot from crawling Javascript and CSS good now?
Matt Cutt says Don’t block Googlebot from crawling
JavaScript and CSS as Blocking Javascript, CSS May Be Hurting Your Rankings.
Since its told by Matt Cutt’s, please don’t have second thoughts. Just follow
what the master says .
.
What is Forum Submission and Does it Help
in Promoting your Website?
Promoting your web page and blog on
Forums
Promote your site in forums. To
promote your website in a forum is a cost-effective way to promote your web
address and build your reputation as being an expert. You can promote your site
and add to your business by submitting your site as long as you keep to the
rules and avoid directly advertising your site. As a result you can gain
exposure in one of two ways.For example, after you sign up, you are generally
asked to provide your signature and a nickname. Typically, you’ll be able to
include your site in your signature, relating it to the subject of your site.
Also, by providing interesting information on a consistent basis, you’ll no
doubt attract visitors to you address as well. By using forums too, you will
encourage the building of natural links to your site, which is always good for
your page ranking. So, making use of forums is an acceptable and useful way to
enhance your reputation and draw visitors to your site.
Q1)
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
Answer:
Google Trends
Q2)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
Answer:
Moved Permanently
Q3)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
Answer:
Flux
Q4)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%
Answer:
30 Percent
Q5)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
Answer:
The total number of inbound links to a page of a web site
Q6)Are
RSS/Atom feeds returned in Google’s search results?
a. Yes
b. No
Answer:
No
Q7)
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
Answer:
Grey hat techniques
Q8)What
do you mean by keyword proximity?
Answer:
Keyword proximity measures the closeness between two keywords. In general, the
closer the keywords are, the better.
Q9)
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
Answer:
The page has temporarily moved
Q10)
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
Answer:
They are also called link farms
Q11) 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
(real-time synonym detection)
d.
Stemming
e.
Branching
Answer:
Stemming
Q12)
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
Answer:
Search engines cannot read Javascript
Q13)
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
Answer:
It is directly comparable to the popularity of the keyword
Q14)
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
Answer:
Lycos
Q15)
Does Google give priority to themed in-bound links.
a. True
b.
False
Answer:
True
SEO Interview
Questions/Answer
Question
A: On Home Page, I have 10 images, from which I want the Google Spider to crawl
only 5 and remaining 5 should be hidden from the Spider? What will I do?
Answer
A) I will make a separate folder in the root file and put all those five 5
images which I don’t want the spider to crawl and then add the folder in the Robots.txt
Question
B) What is the difference between Indexing and Crawling?
Answer
B) 1) When the Search Engines come on your website and read the data or find
the data, this process is called crawling.
2)
Whenever Search Engines come on your website, which ever page they crawl, they
take a copy of that page with them and save it on their server. This process
done by the search engine is called Indexing
Question
C) Which four search engines comprise 90%+ of all general web search traffic?
Answer
C) Google, Yahoo!, MSN/Live and Ask
Question
D) Three most important elements in the head section of an HTML document that
are employed by search engines.
Answer
D) Title, Meta Description and Meta Robots are the big 3.Meta keywords is
another common answer, but it would rank as a distant 4th.
Question
E) Briefly explain the PageRank Algorithm?
Answer
E) In simple terms, Google uses the gross number of inbound links to a page to
determine how important the page is. This “pagerank” has little to do with
actual search results but can make a difference on user behavior.
Questions
F) What are XML sitemaps?
Answers
F) They are an additional tool to help the search engines when they crawl a
site. There is no requirement for any sitemap and your pages will get indexed
without them if you pay close attention to navigation within your site.
Questions
G) Explain various steps that you would take to optimize a website?
Answer
G)
A. 1.
Interview website owner or webmaster to get a good grasp of the site’s purpose
and goals.
2. Perform
a keyword analysis to find best performing keywords that should be used for
that site and for individual pages of the site.
3.
Analyze site content to determine usage of relevant keywords and phrases.
This
includes visible text as well at titles, META tags, and “alt” attributes.
4.
Examine site navigation.
5.
Determine the existence of robots.txt and sitemap and examine those for
effectiveness.
6. Make
recommendations for changes needed for the site and each individual page.
Question
H) If the company whose site you’ve been working for has decided to move all of
its content to a new domain, what steps would you take?
Answer
H) I would update the old site with permanent redirects to to new page for
every page. Then I would attempt to remove old content from the major search
engines to avoid duplicate content issues.