SEO Interview Questions

Q 1) How search engine find out that which webpage has modified or which web pages should I crawl or index?

The if modified since header is a HTTP header that is sent to a server as a conditional request.

• If your web page content has not changed, it sends 304 status code.
• If web page content has been changed, it sends 200 status code. On this basis search engine crawl or index web pages. 

Q 2) Can you optimize the website which has millions of pages?

In SEO point of view For optimize millions of pages or dynamic website, we need to implement dynamic meta tags, dynamic sitemaps etc.

Q 3) What is Keyword Cannibalization in SEO?

When we type any query in search engine, if we found more than one result of one website called Keyword Cannibalization.

Ex.:-

if we work on any website like www.onlinegifts.com. If we search in search engine like "online gifts for men". then our website shows in search engine two time with different - 2 pages.

Q 4) What is maximum size for a robots.txt file?

The limit of robots.txt file is 500KB.

Q 5) What is size limit of sitemap?

1) maximum 50000 urls.
2) max 10MB file size (after un-gzipping).

Q 6) Describe meta robots properties?

<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">

• noindex: prevents the page from being indexed
• nofollow: prevents the Googlebot from following links from this page
• nosnippet: prevents a snippet from being shown in the search results
• noodp: prevents the alternative description from the ODP/DMOZ from being used
• noarchive: prevents Google from showing the Cached link for a page.
• unavailable_after:[date]: lets you specify the exact time and date you want to stop crawling   and indexing of this page
• noimageindex: lets you specify that you do not want your page to appear as the referring page                              for an image that appears in Google search results.
• none: is equivalent to noindex, nofollow.

Q 7) How to disable the Sitelinks search box for your site?

To tell Google not to show a Sitelinks search box when your site appears in the search results, add the following meta tag to your homepage:


<meta name="google" content="nositelinkssearchbox" />

Q 8) How to setup Sitelinks search box in your website?

The Sitelinks search box setup involves the following general steps:

1. Install a working search engine on your web site or Android app.
2. Put the schema.org markup on your homepage.
3. Wait for Google Search algorithms to identify your site or app as a candidate for the new Sitelinks search box.

Put this code only on Site:-

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "potentialAction": {
    "@type": "SearchAction",
    "target": "https://query.example.com/search?q={search_term_string}",
    "query-input": "required name=search_term_string"
  }
}
</script>

Q 9)  Google shows the “translate” link for my page in the search results, even though my page is already in the language used when searching. How can I prevent this? 

IUse the “notranslate” robots meta tag. To block translation of individual elements on a page.

Ex:-  <meta name="google" content="notranslate" />

Q 10) What is Schema.org?

Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users. Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.

Q 11) What is microdata? 

Microdata is a set of tags, introduced with HTML5.

Q 12) What is Structured Data Markup?


"Structured data markup" is a standard way to annotate (explain) your content so machines can understand it.

Q 13) What is rich cards?

Rich cards are very similar to rich snippets but use a card carousel feature with a higher resolution image to improve the searcher’s experience.

For example:- if you have a recipe site, you can build a richer preview of your content with a prominent image for each dish. This visual format helps users find what they want right away, so you're getting users who specifically want that especially delicious cookie recipe you have.

Q 14) Technical Site Audit Checklist?

Technical Site Audit Checklist:-

1.    Check indexed pages
 Do a site: search.
2.    Search for the brand and branded terms
If the proper pages aren't showing up as the first result, there could be issues, like a penalty, in play.
3.    Check Google's cache for key pages
4.    Do a mobile search for your brand and key landing pages

On-page optimization

1.    Title tags are optimized
2.    Important pages have click-through rate optimized titles and meta descriptions
3.    Check for pages missing page titles and meta descriptions
4.    The on-page content includes the primary keyword phrase multiple times as well as variations and alternate keyword phrases
5.    There is a significant amount of optimized, unique content on key pages
6.    The primary keyword phrase is contained in the H1 tag
7.    Images' file names and alt text are optimized to include the primary keyword phrase associated with the page.
8.    URLs are descriptive and optimized
9.    Clean URLs.
A)    No excessive parameters or session IDs.
B)    URLs exposed to search engines should be static.
10.    Short URLs :- 115 characters or shorter – this character limit isn't set in stone, but shorter URLs are better for usability.
11.    Homepage content is optimized :- Should be enough content at least one paragraph, I typically recommend at least 150 words.
12.    Landing pages are optimized :- Pages have at least a few paragraphs of content.
13.    Site contains real and substantial content :- Should be real content not should be only simply a list of linkss
14.    Proper keyword targeting
15.    Keyword cannibalization
16.    Content to help users convert exists and is easily accessible to users :- In addition to search engine driven content, there should be content to help educate users about the product or service.
17.    Content formatting :-
•     Is the content formatted well and easy to read quickly?
•    Are H tags used?
•    Are images used?
•    Is the text broken down into easy to read paragraphs?
18.    Good headlines on blog posts
19.    Amount of content versus ads

Duplicate content

20.    There should be one URL for each piece of content
21.    Do a search to check for duplicate content
22.    Sub-domain duplicate content
23.    Check for a secure version of the site
24.    Check other sites owned by the company :- Is the content replicated on other domains owned by the company?
25.    Check for "print" pages

             Accessibility & Indexation

26.    Check the robots.txt
27.    Turn off JavaScript, cookies, and CSS.
28.    Check for 4xx errors and 5xx errors.
29.    XML sitemaps are listed in the robots.txt file
30.    XML sitemaps are submitted to Google/Bing Webmaster Tools
31.    Check pages for meta robots noindex tag
32.    Do goal pages have the noindex command applied?

Site architecture and internal linking

33.    Number of links on a page :- 100-200 is a good target, but not a rule.

Vertical linking structures are in place :-  Homepage links to category pages, Category pages link to sub-category and product pages as appropriate.

Links are in content :- Does not utilize massive(big) blocks of links stuck in the content to do internal linking. 

Footer links :- Does not use a block of footer links instead of proper navigation, Does not link to landing pages with optimized anchors.

Good internal anchor text

Check BoxCheck for broken links – Xenu tool use for this

Technical issues:-

• Proper use of 301s
• "Bad" redirects are avoided - Screaming Frog tool use for this
• Redirects point directly to the final URL and do not leverage redirect chains
• Use of JavaScript
• Use of iFrames
• Use of Flash
• Check for errors in Google Webmaster Tools
• XML Sitemaps
• Rel canonical link tag is properly implemented across the site

Site speed :-

• Review page load time for key pages
• Make sure compression is enabled
• Optimize your images for the web
• Minify your CSS/JS/HTML

Mobile :- 

• Review the mobile experience
• Ensure that the relationship between the mobile site and desktop site is established with proper markup - If a mobile site (m.) exists, does the desktop equivalent URL point to the mobile version with rel="alternate"?

International :-

• Review international versions indicated in the URL - ex: site.com/uk/ or uk.site.com
• Enable country based targeting in webmaster tools
• Implement hreflang / rel alternate if relevant
• Make sure the currency reflects the country targeted
• Ensure the URL structure is in the native language - Try to avoid having all URLs in the default language

 

Analytics:-

• Analytics tracking code is on every page
• Analytics is properly tracking and capturing internal searches
• Demographics tracking is set up
• Internal IP addresses are excluded
• Event tracking is set up for key user interactions

Read More :- https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015

What is an Internal Link?

Internal links are links that go from one page on a domain to a different page on the same domain.

What are the benefits of Internal Linking?

These are benefits of internal Linking :-

• They allow users to navigate a website.

• They help establish information hierarchy for the given website.

•  They help spread link juice (ranking power) around websites.

What internal linking structure should I follow in websites?

Following internal linking structure should I follow:-

 

What are the reasons search engine may not index some urls of a website?

 

Read more - https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-link

What are the website analysis or SEO Audit steps?

1. Technical SEO
2. Content (or “On-site”) SEO
3. Off-site SEO

Technical SEO Audit :-

·        •    Indexing
•    Robots.txt
•    Preferred domain
•    Sitemaps
•    Broken internal links
•    HTTPS
•    Mobile-friendliness
•    Google PageSpeed
•    Real page speed
•    Internal link structure
•    Broken external links
•    Duplicate meta titles & descriptions

Q) What is Gzip compression?

Gzip is a method of compressing files (making them smaller) for faster network transfers. It is file format. Compression allows your web server to provide smaller file sizes which load faster for your website users. If you are not using it for some reason, your webpages are likely slower than your competitors.

Q) How to enable Gzip compression?

Compression is enabled via webserver configuration, Different web servers have different instructions Here are the most common ways to enable compression including .htaccess, Apache, Nginx, and Litespeed webservers.

Enable compression via .htaccess -

The code below should be added to your .htaccess file.

<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>

Enable compression on Apache webservers -

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript

Tool for Check Gzip :-

http://checkgzipcompression.com/ 


Q) What is soft 404?

Soft 404 is a page that looks like a 404 but returns a HTTP status code 200.  I mean, the website might show a “Page Not Found”-style page, but search engines such as Google will see the page and think that it’s an actual live page.

Q) How much length of H1 is preferable in SEO?

H1 length should be between 50 - 55, but not a rule.