Top 70 SEO Interview Questions and Answers 2019 [Updated]

Questions and Answers for Beginners or Freshers Candidates:

Q1. What do you understand by the term “SEO” and introduce its types?

Ans: SEO is an abbreviated which stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. It is a technique through which you can easily increase the visibility of your website or the web page in the SERP’s (search engine result pages) or unpaid results—often referred to as “organic”, “natural”, or “earned” results.

The two types of SEO are:

1. On Page Optimization.
2. Off Page Optimization.

Q2. What are the SEO tools do you use?

Ans: Some of the SEO tools that you can use are Google analytic, keyword search, Alexa, open site explorer, Google Webmaster.

Q3. What will you do to make a website search engine friendly?

Ans: There are few things that you should keep in mind to make a website search engine friendly are word count, backlinks,  anchor text, outbound links, keyword etc.

Q4. What do you mean by Backlink and mention its importance in SEO?

Ans: Backlink is basically referred as incoming links to your website or web page. It is important because it results in the better chance of visibility in the search engine along with better traffic and ranking.

Q5. Why is SEO so important?

Ans: The Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential because of the following reasons:-

Most of the user’s majority of search engines is more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions on the results pages (SERPS), so to take advantage of this and gain visitors to your website or customers to your online store you need to in the top positions.

• SEO is not only about search engines but good SEO practices improve the user experience and usability of a website.
• Users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching, increases the web site’s trust.
• SEO is appropriate for the social marketing of your website. People who find your website by searching Google, Yahoo & Bing are more likely to promote it on social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn or other social media channels.
• SEO is essential for a big website like an example, if you have a website with more than one author, it can benefit from SEO in a direct and indirect way.
• Direct benefit: Increase in organic traffic
• Indirect benefit: Having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.

• Search engine optimization can put you ahead of the competition. If two similar niche websites are selling the same products, the search engine optimized website is more likely to have more business and make more sales.

Q6. What is a Search Engine?

Ans: Basically search engine is software based on a web system which is developed in order to search and locate information on the World Wide Web. The search engines are generally answering to all the questions that are entered by the users and in response, they give them a list of search results.

Q7. Name of a few search engines?

Ans: Some of the search engines with which you might be similar are –   Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, and Yandex.

• Google: – It is used everwhere around the world.
• Bing: – It is widely used in U.S and Canada.
• Yahoo: -it is mostly popular in the U.S and Canada.
• Baidu: – The search engine Baidu offers many services which includes results for Chinese websites, audio files, and images.
• Yandex: – This is the most popular search engine in Russia.

Q8. What are the names of few crawler for different search engines and also mention its function?

Ans: The term Crawling or web crawler is referred to an automated process through which different search engines filtrate web pages for proper indexing. Usually, the crawler used to go through different web pages because of the relevant keywords, content, and hyperlink. There are few crawlers for different search engines like:-

• Google: – Google Bots crawler.
• Yahoo: – Yahoo Slurp crawler.
• Bing: – Msnbot crawler

Their main function is to go through from other linked pages on websites, usually, companies build their sitemaps for better accessibility and navigation.

Q9. What is Indexing?

Ans: The word indexing comes into account just after the crawling process gets completed during any search. Generally, in indexing, Google uses the crawling feature to collect different pages relevant to your search queries, and according to that indexing in done which further includes specific keywords or search terms and their locations.

Q10. What is SERP?

Ans: The term SERP stands for Search Engine Result Page is used to display a specific query which is entered over different search engines.

Q11. What is an organic result?

Ans:  In organic SEO it displays all the listing of the web pages which are almost relevant to all the queries that are entered into the search engine by the users. Mostly it is referred as “free” or “natural” result. If the website is getting a  higher ranking in the organic result over the search engines is the major purpose of SEO

Q12. What is paid result means?

Ans: Mostly paid results is completely opposite of organic results it includes generally all the advertisements that are usually displayed above the organic results. Many website owners generally pay to Google in order to display their website with better ranking for certain search terms or keywords.

Q13. What is On-Page SEO?

Ans: On Page SEO basically includes all the activities that are executed within the website in order to attain better ranking and drive relevant traffic from the search engines.

This is related to the HTML source code of any web page along with the optimization of the content. Some aspects include Meta tags, title tags, meta description and heading tags.

Q14. What is Off Page SEO?

Ans: The term off page SEO involves all other aspects that affect the search ranking of the website on the search engine result pages.

Q15. What is the definition of a keyword?

Ans: The word keyword can be used a key for serving any word. Keywords are the basically key phrases and words in SEO which includes the web content which helps the users to find the specific website by entering relevant search queries over the search engines.

16. What is the long tail keyword?                                   

Ans:  When the combination of more than four words is there then the search results becomes highly specific. Even long tail keywords are easy to get ranked in the SERP’s. They are helpful to draw quality traffic with increased lead conversation rates.

Q17. What are LSI keywords?

Ans: The word LSI stands for latent Semantic Indexing this semantics are linked with the main keywords that user generally enter over the search engines.

Q18. What are Heading tags?

Ans: In the field of SEO, header tags or heading are generally used to separate the different parts like heading from the sub heading of any content. Approx there are 6 headings within a page in a top-down hierarchy.

Q19. What is Canonical URL?

Ans: In the process of Canonical URL the best URL are selected for the web pages which the visitors generally wants to see. This is very beneficial in the case of content syndication especially when the multiple versions of the same page becomes available over the internet. Even it resolves all the issues related to content duplication.

For example, most people will go to consider all these URLs as the same URLs:

www.example.com

example.com/

www.example.com/index.html

example.com/home.asp

Q20. What is Page Title?

Ans: Page title is another name for the title tag. It is a kind of phrase which is referred for describing webpage content. This usually appears on the search result page just above the URL and even visible at the top of your browser.

Q21. What is SEO friendly URL?

Ans: Basically SEO friendly URLs are used in order to optimize the structure and word usage in URLs which results in better indexing of a website by the search engines. The keywords with proper length and file structure in the URLs leads to better website ranking and website navigation.

Q22. What are Meta descriptions?

Ans: The Meta description is also known as HTML attribute which includes an accurate description of any web page content. They even act as a snippet of the web pages over the SERP’s. Ideally, it can involve description up to 150 characters.

Q23. What is a Do-Follow link?

Ans: According to the name Do-Follow Link suggest and allows Google link calculator called Page Rank to count all the incoming link from other web pages and websites as link points.

Q24. What is a No-Follow link?

Ans: The complete opposite of Do-Follow link is a No-Follow link that is a link attribute which do not allow the Google bots to follow them. Only human can follow these links and cannot be followed by any robots. The structure of No-follow link attributes is done in the following manner:

<a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”follow”>Link text</a>

Q25. What is internal linking?

Ans: The process of providing hyperlinks on the web pages is known as internal linking which connect to the same domain. You can say it just the another way of directing visitors from one page to another of the same website.

Q26.What are incoming links?

Ans: Inbound Links is the another name of incoming links or backlinks which refer to the hyperlink available on a third party webpage that directs the user to your web page only.

Q27. What is an outgoing link?

Ans: The outgoing link is a kind of hyperlink that targets at a pointy or external domain and is different from the link that is available on the source domain. For example, In case you are providing links to other third-party web pages on your website, those would be external links to your site.

Q28). What are the most important Google ranking factors? 

Ans: The three top most ranking factors which affect the search engine algorithm of Google includes the following:-

1. Content.
2. Backlinks.
3. RankBrain.

Q29.What is robots.txt?

Ans: It’s a way of telling the Search Engine Bots about the web pages on your website that you don’t want to open or visit by others.

If in case you want to block all search engines robots for crawling your website, then just put the follow code:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /

If you want to block Google for crawling your website, just put the follow code:

User-agent: Googlebot

Disallow: /

It’s important to install Robots.txt file very carefully, or else errors might occur while displaying the website.

Q30. What is HTML Sitemap?

Ans: The HTML Sitemap consists of one single HTML page that contains the links to all the web pages of any specific websites. Even it contains all the all formatted text files and linking tags of any particular website. Generally, it helps you to get the better navigation of your website by listing all the web pages in one place in a user-friendly manner

Q31. What is XML Sitemap?

Ans: The term XML stands for Extensible Markup Language which was initially created to t accelerate the functionality of the search engines. Basically, a good XML sitemap provides you the information about the number of pages present on any specific website, along with the total number of updates which even includes the last time modification details which help in proper indexing of the website by the search engines.

Q32. How can I see what pages are indexed in Google?

Ans: There are two ways to check whether the web page of any specific website is indexed by the google involves the following:-

Anyone can check the Google Index Status of any specific website with the help of Google Webmaster Tools.

Even one can perform a manual check and search on Google by typing in Google search bar and it will display the number of pages indexed would reflect on the SERP.

Q33. What are 404 errors?

Ans: The 404 errors is considered as the obstruction in the way of successful SEO. In case if the URL is renamed or it becomes not- existence any link which is connected to that URL will result in 404 errors.

Q34. What is 301 Redirect?

Ans: The term 301 Redirect is referred as one of the most prominent ways of applying redirects on any websites. When a particular web Address is changed permanently due to any reason, then its best to use 301 redirect which will redirect the users directly to the new web address

Questions and Answers for Advance SEO or Experienced Candidates

Q1. What is Google Analytics?

Ans: The Google Analytics was launched in 2005. It is one of the most certified analytical tools in the field of SEO, which allows the Web Master to keep the track and monitor of the traffic on their website and its basically free of charge service while the premium services demand investment

Q2. What is Google PageRank?

Ans: The Google PageRank is basically software which determined the importance of one web page depends on a number of quality backlinks it contains.

Q3. What is Domain Authority?

Ans: It is considered as one of the most important SEO factors. Domain Authority is just like a key performance metric which is developed by Moz on this websites rating is done on a scale of 1-100. In order to achieve huge traffic and high ranking in the SERP, your DA of the websites should be high.

Q4. What is Search Engine Submission?

Ans: In the process of Search engine submission the tool Web Masters is used in which website is directly submitted to the search engine so that its online recognition and visibility gets increased. In other words, you can say that it’s basically informing the search engines about the presence of any website, which is then indexed by the search engines and reflected on the SERP page.

Q5. What is Directory Submission?

Ans: In SEO Directory submission is the listing of any website address or site along with the important details related to various web directories under a specific category

It has similar functions just like phone directory and results in the better popularity of your websites with greater online exposure. The Directory submission can be both free of cost and paid ones.

Q6. What is Article submission?

Ans: In general Article, submission is considered as a part of Off page SEO optimization. It includes the presentation of articles on different online article directories like EzineArticles, ArticleTrader, GoArticles, etc. Which contains proper anchor text for link building, and it is usually performed for the promotion of any website.

Q7. What is Press Release submission?

Ans: The Press Release Submission includes the activity of writing a press release along with and submitting them to effective and popular PR sites for creating backlinks to any specific website. It remains in the database which means that you can use it anytime you want in the future. This results in enhancing the online visibility of your websites.

Q8. What are Classified ads?

Ans: The classified ad is a kind of advertising which is just like newspapers advertising, online and other periodicals which are distributed free of charge over the internet. It is much cheaper comparatively to the larger display of advertisements used by businesses, although display advertising is more widespread.

Q9. What is Forum Posting?

Ans: The act of writing, engaging and interacting on a forum thread just by simply leaving a response to the thread is known as forum Posting.  of the Example: FileZilla Forums, WebmasterWorld

Q10. What is a Business directory?

Ans: A business directory is basically a website or it’s a kind of listing the information which lists all business under some category. Businesses can be distinguished by business, location, activity, or size.

Business can be compiled either manually or through different software which is automated for online search.

Q11. What is Social Bookmarking?

Ans: The way of expanding your business and/or social contacts by establishing connections through individuals, often through different social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram.

Q12. What is RSS Feed?

Ans:  The term RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a kind of format for delivering regularly changing web content.  It enables publishers to syndicate data automatically. This even ensures compatibility with so many different machines/programs which is a standard XML file format.

It also benefits for those users who want to receive timely updates from their favorite websites or to aggregate data from many sites.

Q13. What is Guest posting?

Ans: The process of creating quality content and publishing it on another person’s website is known as Guest posting. Basically, the Blogs are the most suitable platform for guest posting. This is an awesome way to develop an online reputation, backlinks and for a company to get much-needed recognition.

Q14. What is Blog commenting?

Ans: One of the popular online marketing strategies is to leave thoughtful comments on a blog post, where a business should be able to gain online importance.

Q15. What is Google Algorithm?

Ans: The set of commands which are written for the purpose of getting feeding back with search results related to the queries you made. The work is to search out the Web pages that contain the keywords you used to search, then according to that rank to each page based on several factors, including how many times the keywords density on the page, quality of the page, backlinks of the particular page etc.

Q16. What is Google Panda?

Ans: It was first released in February 2011 as a change to Google’s search results ranking algorithm. The main aim is to lower the rank of “low-quality sites” or “thin sites”, and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.

Q17. What is Google Penguin?

Ans: The Penguin Update was launched by Google in April 2012 in order to have better identify and regulate websites which were considered spammy.

The Penguin aim at sites that include keyword stuffing along with the practice of black-hat SEO.

Q18. What is Mobile addon?

Ans: The  Mobile addon is a Google’s algorithm that was updated on April 21, 2015, and even name given by webmasters and web-developers. In this, the main effect of the update is to give priority to the web sites that display well on smartphones and other mobile devices

Q19. What is HTTPS/SSL Update?

Ans: The term HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol which is a secure protocol for secure communication on the World Wide Web.

Q20. What is Google Pigeon Update?

Ans: The another code name of Google’s local search algorithm Google’s local search algorithm is Google Pigeon it was updated and released on July 24, 2014. The main function of this local listing in a search is to increase the ranking search which even affects the search results shown in Google Maps along with the regular Google search results.

Q21. What is Google Penalty?

Ans: When a negative effect is made on a website’s ranking due to all the updates to Google’s search algorithms and/or manual review. Is known as Google Penalty.

Q22. What is Google Sitelinks?

Ans: The sub-listings that will display in sometimes under the first listing over the first page of Google search results is known as Google Sitelinks.

Q23. What is Google Knowledge Graph?

Ans: The way of gathering semantic-search information from a wide variety of sources by Google in order to improve its search engine’s results is known as the Google Knowledge Graph.

Q24. What is Google My Business?

Ans: Ans. The Google My Business is a tool which is free of cost and easy-to-use for businesses, artists, brands, and organizations for maintaining proper online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.

Some of its uses that include:-

• Updating business information
• Including photos of your business
• Maintain direct connection with the customers
• Keep Monitoring and responding to Google review
• Managing information.

Q25. Popular SEO Blogs to follow?

Ans: Some of the popular SEO blogs that you can go through for more information are:-

• Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Watch
• Search Engine Journal
• Content Marketing Institute
• Moz
• KISSmetrics
• HubSpot etc.

Q26. What is AMP?

Ans: The term AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages which is an open-source coding standard for publishers and with the help of this are able to load their sites quickly on mobile.

Q27. What is cloaking?

Ans: Cloaking is basically a technique which is used to deliver the quality content on a Web page over a search engine in a way that is completely different to what the user was looking for.

The main aim of cloaking is to boost a website’s search engine rank regarding certain keywords.

Q28. What is keyword density?

Ans: The percentage of times a keyword or phrase shows on a web page is known as Keyword density. It is used for determining that whether a web page is related to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

Q29. What is keyword frequency?

Ans: The total number of times a keyword or phrase appears on a single Web page is known as Keyword frequency

Q30. What is Google Fetch?

Ans: The Google Fetch is a Google tool which allows you to test how Google renders an URL on your site. In case you want to use Google Fetch to see whether Googlebot can access a page on your site, how it renders the page, and whether any page resources are blocked to Googlebot

Q31. How do you separate words in URL?

Ans: If you want to separate words from the URLS then you should use hyphens.

Q32. What is Google Dance?

Ans: The term Google Dance is referred for describing fluctuating results while Google rebuilds its rankings, and as an outcome of this rebuilding, the rankings list of Websites on Google’s SERP may fluctuate repeatedly.

Q33. What is ccTLD?

Ans: It’s an abbreviation for country code top-level domains.

Q34 .What is Black Hat SEO?

Ans: The use of aggressive SEO strategies, techniques, and tactics that do not obey search engines guidelines and target only on the search engines.

Q35 .Name a few Black Hat SEO techniques

Ans: Some of the  few black hat SEO techniques are:

• Link Farming
• Hidden text
• Gateway or Doorway pages
• Cloaking
• Keyword Stuffing

Q36 .What is bounce rate?

Ans: The number of visitors which a site receives only for them to leave the site after viewing only one page is known as Bounce rate.  It represents the percentage of visitors who actually visited the site and then leave or “bounce” rather than continuing on to view the other pages within the same page.