Q.1) What is a mobile subdomain?
A subdomain that the web server will
send users to based on their user agent. (Your Answer)
B. subdomain that can be easily
changed from one server to another.
C. subdomain that serves different
results to users based on their user agent.
D. subdomain that dynamically sizes
content to the screen size of the user's browser.
Explanation
A mobile subdomain is one that the web server will send
users to based on their user agent. In other words, the server will detect
which users are visiting your site from a mobile device and direct those users
to a mobile-optimized subdomain instead of the main website.
If you got this question wrong, check out this article by Google on separate URLs for mobile vs. desktop
for more information. (For more information about different types of mobile
configurations, please see The Definitive Guide To Technical
Mobile SEO.)
Q.2) What is responsive web design?
A. site design that adapts to the
specific needs of the user.
B. site design that uses CSS to
dynamically adapt the HTML to fit the user's device and screen size. (Your
Answer)
C. site design that determines the
user agent of the browser and sends different HTML sized for optimal viewing.
D. site that provides different HTML
to Google from the HTML it delivers to users.
Explanation
According to The Definitive Guide To Technical
Mobile SEO, responsive web design, or responsive design, is a type
of site implementation wherein a web page "serves basically the same
content to all users but detects the device and screen size and builds the
layout accordingly. As the screen size gets smaller, the page may show fewer
images, less text or a simplified navigation."
If you got this question wrong, go to this article by Google on responsive design
for more information.
Q.3) What does dynamic serving deliver?
A. site that adapts to the specific
needs of the user.
B. site that serves HTML to the
browser so it can dynamically adapt the content to its size.
C. site that determines the user
agent of the browser and sends different HTML sized for optimal viewing. (Your
Answer)
D. site that provides different HTML
to Google from the HTML it delivers to users.
Explanation
Dynamic serving is a method whereby the server sends
different HTML to the visitor based on the user agent, with each version
optimized to each particular set up. (For example, a site may dynamically serve
different HTML to desktop and mobile users.) Whereas responsive design uses CSS
to render the same HTML differently based on the user's device, dynamic serving
serves different HTML code altogether.
If you got this question wrong, go to this article by Google on dynamic serving for more
information. (For more information about different types of mobile
configurations, please see The Definitive Guide To Technical
Mobile SEO.)
Q.4) Of the items listed below, what is
the single most important on-page SEO factor?
A. The number of uses of the target
keyword.
B. Use of the keywords in the keywords
metatag.
C. Use of the target keyword in the top
heading of the page.
D. Use of the target keyword in the
title tag. (Your Answer)
Explanation
Q.5) What is the most important heading
tag on a page?
A. It doesn't matter; they are all the
same.
B. The <h1> tag.
C. The highest level heading tag used
on the page. (Your Answer)
D. The <h0> tag.
Explanation
The most important heading tag is the highest-level tag on
the page, with <h1> being the highest and <h6> being the lowest.
Note that there are many in the industry who think the <h1> tag is the
correct answer here, but this does not make sense in today's environment.
Tests run by Moz show that simply having a keyword in a bigger font has the same impact. This makes far more sense. Page
markup is relative. So the highest level heading tag is the one that matters
most.
Q.6) What is the most important SEO
ranking factor related to on-page content?
A. The relevance and breadth of the
content on the page. (Your Answer)
B. The use of keywords in the heading
tags.
C. The number of times the keywords are
repeated in the content.
D. Whether or not the target keyword is
used in the first 50 words.
Explanation
The overall relevance of content matters more than how many
times you use specific keyword phrases. Yes, you want to use those phrases in
key places, but focus on content quality first, and make your content relevant
and valuable.
You can also learn more about this by reviewing Chapter 2 of Search Engine Land's
Guide To SEO, or by getting The Art of SEO and going to the
section on content optimization on page 317.
Q.7) What's the ideal length for content
on a web page?
A. 1,000 words or more.
B. It doesn't matter.
C. 100 words on e-commerce pages, 500
words or more on article pages.
D. Whatever is most appropriate to the
topic and focus of the web page. (Your Answer)
Explanation
There is no such thing as an ideal length for content. Write
your content to meet the needs of the users visiting your page, and do that as
well as you possibly can.
Q.8) What is keyword cannibalization?
A. When you analyze competitors to
discover keywords to target.
B. When multiple pages on a site are
optimized for the same keywords. (Your Answer)
C. When you compete for more than one
keyword on the same page.
D. When poor SEO implementation causes
your page to be non-competitive for the target keywords.
Explanation
Q.9) What is duplicate content?
A. When one page has the exact same
content as another.
B. When you copy content from a
competitor's site.
C. When there are substantive blocks of
content on a web page that either completely match, or are appreciably similar
to, content on another web page. (Your Answer)
D. When one page has nearly the same
content as another
Explanation
Though A, B and D could all be considered duplicate content,
C has the broadest definition and is therefore the most accurate. Any time a
web page contains substantial blocks of content that appear word-for-word (or
nearly word-for-word) on another web page, that can be considered duplicate
content by Google.
You can learn more about how Google sees duplicate content here, or read more about duplicate content
on Search Engine Land.
Q.10) What are hreflang tags?
A. They are used to tell search engines
what language and country a website is intended to serve.
B. They are used to tell search engines
what language and/or country a website is intended to serve.
C. They are used to tell search engines
what language, or what language and country a website is intended to serve. (Your
Answer)
D. They are used to indicate the
preferred dialect of a language for a web page.
Explanation
Hreflang tags are used to help search engines serve the
correct language or regional URL in search results. Language can be specified
by itself, or language plus country may be specified; a country code by
itself will not be recognized.
Google explains hreflang tags in detail here. I also shot a video
to explain how to use hreflang tags here.
Q.11) What does the Vary: User-Agent HTTP
Header do?
A. It tells web servers that users more
about what a user needs.
B. It tells users that tells a site's
content varies from time to time.
C. It tells ISPs to not cache a site's
content.
D. It tells caching servers that a
site's content varies by user agent. (Your Answer)
Explanation
Used with sites that employ dynamic serving, the Vary HTTP
header signals that different content is served to different user agents, which
can help Google and other search engines discover mobile content more easily.
Patrick Sexton does a great job explaining the Vary: User-Agent HTTP here. You can also see a
video with my explanation here.
Q.12) How do you recover from Panda?
A. Fix thin and poor-quality content on
the pages of your site, and wait. (Your Answer)
B. Fix thin, poor-quality and duplicate
content on the pages of your site, and submit a reconsideration request.
C. Fix thin, poor-quality and duplicate
content on the pages of your site, and wait.
D. Fix thin and poor-quality content on
the pages of your site, and submit a reconsideration request.
Explanation
Panda is an algorithm focused on evaluating content quality.
Google steadfastly maintains that duplicate content is not part of Panda, and
since it's algorithmic, there is no value in submitting a reconsideration
request.
You can read more about the Google Panda algorithm update
here on Search Engine Land. If you have The Art of SEO, Chapter 9
discusses Panda in detail.
Q.13) How do you recover from Penguin?
A. Remove all links to your site with a
Domain Authority of 50 or less, and wait.
B. Remove all links that do not appear
to be editorially given, and then wait.
C. Clean up links from web directories,
article directories, countries where you don't do business and where you have
too much rich anchor text, and then wait. (Your Answer)
D. Remove or disavow all links that do
not appear to be editorially given, and file a reconsideration request.
Explanation
Like Panda, Penguin is an algorithm update, so filing a
reconsideration request is a waste of time. You have to wait for the algorithm
to run again and find your changes. Penguin does not use a metric like Domain
Authority or PageRank to assess value, and in my experience, it seems to target
certain classes of links, such as those shown in the correct answer. Read more
about the Google Penguin algorithm update
here on Search Engine Land.
Q.14) How do you recover from a manual
link penalty?
A. Remove all links to your site with a
Domain Authority of 50 or lower, and wait.
B. Remove all links that do not appear
to be editorially given, and then wait.
C. Clean up links from web directories,
article directories, countries were you don't do business and where you have
too much rich anchor text, and then wait.
D. Remove or disavow all links that do
not appear to be editorially given, and file a reconsideration request. (Your
Answer)
Explanation
Since manual penalties are not algorithmic, they are more
far-ranging in the types of links they can detect, so you should remove or
disavow all links to your site that were not editorially given. And because
it's a manual penalty, you'll want
to file a reconsideration request.
Q.15) When do you use the
rel="canonical" tag?
A. To implement 301 redirects.
B. To help resolve potential duplicate
content problems.
C. To point to the desktop version of
mobile pages when you have a mobile subdomain.
D. Both B. and C. (Your Answer)
Explanation
When the same content appears on multiple URLs, the
rel="canonical" tag is used to specify which version is the preferred
(or canonical) version. You can learn more by seeing Google's take on it here,
or watch a video I shot on the topic here.
Q.16) When do you use meta robots noindex
tags?
A. To prevent pages from appearing in
search results. (Your Answer)
B. To block search engines from
crawling pages on your site.
C. To stop PageRank flow into
low-quality pages.
D. All of the above.
Explanation
The noindex meta tag prevents a web page from being indexed
(and thus appearing in search results). This tag comes in handy when you have
low-quality pages on your site that you are not able to delete. This page from
Google explains the noindex tag, and I walk you through how to implement the tag here.
Q.17) What do rel prev/next tags do?
A. They are used by publishers to
identify groups of paginated URLs.
B. They cause search engines to treat
all links into any of the pages in a group of paginated URLs to be considered
links to the entire group.
C. They help eliminate concerns with
perceived duplicate content for paginated URLs.
D. All of the above. (Your Answer)
Explanation
The rel="next" and rel="prev" link
elements are used to indicate component pages within a series -- for example, a
multi-page article or a forum thread spread across multiple URLs. For more
information, check out this post on Search Engine Land
or this video on how to implement prev next tags here.
Q.18) Does Google care about where content
is located on a page?
A. Yes; they only care about content
visible to the user, as they want to emphasize user engagement.
B. Yes; they only care about content in
the main body of the page, as the rest of the content is not page-specific.
C. Yes; placement on the page says
something about the importance of the content. (Your Answer)
D. No, they don't care.
Explanation
Where content is placed on a page says something about how
important the site publisher believes that content will be to visitors. In
addition, it's a fairly classic but low-value SEO practice to place large
blocks of content on pages well below the fold. For these reasons, Google does
place more emphasis on content that is visible above the fold.
Q.19) When implementing different filters
or sort orders for products on your site, which of these should you leverage to
minimize duplicate content/thin content risks?
A. noindex
B. robots.txt
C. nofollow
D. rel="canonical" (Your
Answer)
Explanation
While noindex does work, it's not as efficient in returning
any PageRank from the sort order pages back to their parent page. Noindex pages
can pass PageRank, but they pass it through their links like other pages. When
you have a rel="canonical" on a page, you are asking the search
engines to pass any PageRank back to the specific pages you target with the
rel="canonical."
Q.20) When implementing pagination for
products on your site, which of these should you leverage to minimize duplicate
content/thin content risks?
A. rel=prev/next + noindex
B. rel=prev/next + nofollow
C. rel=prev/next (Your Answer)
D. rel=prev/next + robots.txt
Explanation
The noindex and rel=prev/next commands conflict with one
another. There is no reason to nofollow the links on the page, as this simply
blocks the flow of PageRank. Finally, if you also list the page in robots.txt,
the search engines won't be able to read the pages to see the rel=prev/next
commands.
