40 questions / 10 random questions
Random questions, instant feedback, and review for missed questions.
A cooking school wants more search visitors. What is the appropriate purpose of SEO?
Answer: Help people and search engines understand the content
SEO helps people discover relevant information through search. It is distinct from buying ads and cannot guarantee indexing or a particular rank.
You are planning an article for people choosing hiking boots. Which content approach is appropriate?
Answer: Explain fit and intended use with concrete examples
Plan around the reader's decision and provide useful, original explanations. Relevant information matters more than repeating terms.
A public page has noindex but is also blocked by robots.txt. What is the important caveat?
Answer: The crawler may be unable to retrieve and read noindex
Google needs to retrieve the directive to process noindex. Crawl blocking is not equivalent to preventing a URL from appearing or protecting confidential data.
Payroll documents are intended only for employees. Which measure protects confidentiality?
Answer: Require authentication and check access permissions
Not appearing in search does not prevent direct retrieval. Protect confidential information through server-side access control.
The same article has URLs with and without tracking parameters. What does rel="canonical" do?
Answer: Indicate the preferred representative URL for duplicate content
Canonical annotations signal a preferred URL; they do not redirect visitors or guarantee Google's choice. Keep other signals consistent.
An article permanently moves to a new URL. What should the old URL do?
Answer: Redirect to the corresponding new URL with 301 or 308
Use a permanent server-side redirect to the corresponding destination and update internal links. Unrelated destinations fail the original intent.
A new article is added to an XML sitemap. What can reasonably be expected?
Answer: It helps URL discovery but does not guarantee indexing
A sitemap assists discovery. It guarantees neither crawling, indexing, nor ranking, and does not replace navigable links.
Every product detail page uses the title 'Product list'. Which improvement is appropriate?
Answer: Use concise titles identifying each product accurately
Use accurate titles that distinguish pages. Google generates title links from multiple sources, so the displayed text may differ.
Search shows a passage from the page instead of its meta description. What is the correct interpretation?
Answer: A snippet may be drawn from page content depending on the query
Snippets can vary with the query. A meta description is a possible source, not guaranteed fixed text.
An important article is linked only through a click handler on a span. Which basic implementation improves discoverability?
Answer: Use an anchor with href and descriptive link text
An anchor with href exposes the destination through standard HTML. Descriptive text also helps explain the destination.
Japanese and English versions of the same content use separate URLs. Which annotation identifies the language alternatives?
Answer: List reciprocal language URLs with hreflang
Hreflang identifies language or regional alternatives. Include self-references and reciprocal annotations for the matching versions.
A recipe has valid structured data with no validation errors. What is true about rich results?
Answer: Eligibility does not guarantee rich-result display
Valid syntax is only part of eligibility; content and policy requirements also apply. Actual presentation remains discretionary.
Product image alt text is stuffed with unrelated popular keywords. What should replace it?
Answer: Describe the image concisely in its context
Describe informative images in context without keyword stuffing. Purely decorative images may need empty alt text for accessibility.
Which current Core Web Vital measures responsiveness to user interactions?
Answer: INP, which measures responsiveness to user interactions
INP concerns responsiveness, LCP loading of main content, and CLS visual stability. Good scores alone do not guarantee top rankings.
Product descriptions are generated with JavaScript. How should you check whether Google can see them?
Answer: Inspect rendering and resource access with URL Inspection
Your browser and Google's rendering may differ. Inspect the rendered content and failed resource requests rather than assuming equivalence.
You want to investigate why a particular URL is not indexed. Which Search Console feature should you start with?
Answer: Use URL Inspection to examine indexing and retrieval issues
URL Inspection is the starting point for a specific URL's indexing status. Check reported and live conditions to investigate indexing directives, fetch failures, or canonicalization.
A search result has 2,000 impressions and 100 clicks. What is its CTR?
Answer: The CTR is 5.0%
CTR is clicks divided by impressions: 100 / 2,000 x 100 = 5%. It is not the conversion rate.
You are paid to publish an external link. Which rel value is recommended to identify the paid relationship to Google?
Answer: Use rel="sponsored" to identify the paid relationship
Sponsored is recommended for paid links; nofollow is also acceptable. This annotation is separate from making the commercial relationship clear to users.
A plan uses AI to mass-produce similar articles without verification or added value, solely to manipulate rankings. What is the appropriate assessment?
Answer: Scaled low-value content can be abusive regardless of its source
The issue is low-value scaled content intended to manipulate rankings, not the tool alone. Assess usefulness and accuracy before publication.
Organic search clicks have declined. What is an appropriate first diagnostic step?
Answer: Compare impressions and CTR by period, page, and search query
Separate changes in demand, visibility, and click-through behavior. Check seasonality and site changes rather than assigning a cause from one metric.
An article was removed without a replacement. You still display a helpful error message. Which HTTP response is appropriate?
Answer: Return 404 to indicate the article is absent
Use 404 or 410 for a removed URL without a replacement. A helpful message can accompany that response. Returning 200 with an error message may result in a soft 404 classification.
Articles are temporarily unavailable during brief maintenance. Which HTTP response appropriately describes this condition?
Answer: Return 503 to indicate temporary unavailability
503 describes temporary unavailability. Restore normal responses after maintenance and monitor recovery. Prolonged server errors can affect indexing, so 503 is not a guarantee of continued indexing.
Page 2 of an article listing contains different articles from page 1. You want each page discoverable in search. How should canonical URLs be assigned?
Answer: Assign each listing page its own canonical URL
Distinct paginated content should have unique URLs and self-referencing canonicals. Treating later pages as duplicates of page 1 misrepresents their content. Also provide crawlable links between pages.
More products load only after clicking a Load more button. Which design helps Google discover the later products?
Answer: Provide later listings at unique URLs linked with a href
Do not rely on crawlers clicking buttons. Provide linked, uniquely addressed pages that show their products when accessed directly. The Load more interaction can remain available for users.
Desktop shows full articles, but the mobile version omits their second half. What should you do for mobile-first indexing?
Answer: Provide equivalent primary article content on mobile
Google primarily uses mobile content for indexing. Layouts can differ, but primary content should be equivalent. Accordion layouts are possible, provided fetching the actual text does not depend on a user interaction.
Article images use lazy loading below the initial viewport. What should you verify after loading so Google can recognize them?
Answer: The image URL appears in the rendered img src attribute
Ensure images load automatically as they enter the viewport and that rendered HTML contains their URLs in img src. Interaction-only loading or URLs absent from image markup can hinder discovery.
A sitemap changes every article's lastmod to today even when its content is unchanged. What is an appropriate correction?
Answer: Use each article's actual significant modification time
Lastmod should accurately reflect significant page modifications, such as changes to primary content or structured data. Do not substitute page views or sitemap generation times. Google uses consistently accurate lastmod values.
Color, size, and sorting options create many listing URLs. Combinations not needed in search generate heavy crawling. What is an appropriate initial design decision?
Answer: Select useful entry pages and control crawling of unwanted URLs
Distinguish useful search entry pages from unwanted filter or sort combinations. Consider crawl controls such as robots.txt for unwanted patterns. Blocking crawling does not guarantee removal of indexed URLs and prevents reading a noindex directive.
A product listing has only three pages, but page=999 returns an empty listing with status 200. How should nonexistent page numbers respond?
Answer: Return 404 to identify a nonexistent listing page
Return 404 for nonexistent pagination URLs while optionally showing a helpful message. This is distinct from a real category temporarily having no available stock; the page number here does not exist.
Opening page=2 and page=3 directly displays page 1 products in both cases. What pagination behavior should be fixed first?
Answer: Show the product listing matching the requested page number
Direct access to each unique URL must show that page's corresponding products. Requiring prior click history breaks search entry and shared links as well as crawlability.
A public PDF should remain accessible by URL but stay out of Google Search. What should be set on the PDF response itself?
Answer: Set noindex in the X-Robots-Tag response header
Use an X-Robots-Tag response header with noindex for non-HTML resources such as PDFs. Google must be able to fetch that response. This controls search indexing; confidential documents still require access controls.
A temporary removal in Search Console succeeded, but the original page remains public. What should you understand if it must remain excluded from search?
Answer: Temporary removal is insufficient; apply a lasting measure
Temporary removal hides a URL from Google Search, usually for about six months. For a lasting result, use fetchable noindex when keeping the page, or remove it with 404/410 when retiring it. Protect sensitive content with access controls.
You want to investigate slow appearance of the large opening image in an article. Which Core Web Vitals metric is most relevant?
Answer: Use LCP to measure when major visible content appears
LCP tracks when the largest eligible image or text block in the viewport is rendered. Verify that the image is the LCP element and investigate discovery, transfer, and rendering delays. LCP alone does not determine search ranking.
Reading starts before an image above the text loads, then the text jumps downward. The image's aspect ratio is known. What is a basic CLS improvement?
Answer: Reserve image space by specifying its dimensions or aspect ratio
Reserving the image area before loading avoids pushing text downward when it appears. Use width/height or an appropriate aspect-ratio and preserve the correct ratio in responsive layouts.
JavaScript generates product descriptions, but robots.txt blocks the script URL. What should you investigate when Google cannot recognize that content?
Answer: Allow retrieval of the required script and inspect the rendered content
Google cannot render with scripts it is blocked from fetching. Make resources required for public content available and inspect rendered output, for example with URL Inspection. Keep authentication and authorization for administrative functions separate.
You want a Search Console property covering HTTP, HTTPS, and all subdomains of example.com. Which property and verification combination fits?
Answer: Create a domain property for example.com and verify through DNS
A root-domain property includes protocol and subdomain variations and requires DNS-based ownership verification. A URL-prefix property covers the specified prefix, so verifying only HTTPS or www does not cover the requested scope.
You have 70,000 public URLs and will keep each XML sitemap within its file-size limit. Which arrangement respects the URL-count limit?
Answer: Split into 40,000 and 30,000 URLs and reference both in an index
A single sitemap is limited to 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed. Files with 40,000 and 30,000 URLs meet the count limit and can be listed in a sitemap index. Compression or removing fields does not change the URL-count limit.
Search traffic declined and a colleague suspects a Google manual action. Where can you directly check whether a manual action is reported?
Answer: Check the Manual actions report in Search Console
The Manual actions report in Search Console shows reported manual actions. Traffic decline alone is not proof of one. An empty report does not rule out demand changes, technical problems, or ranking changes.
You want to check whether product structured data is missing fields required for Google-supported rich results. Which validation tool should you start with?
Answer: Use the Rich Results Test to inspect supported data validation
The Rich Results Test validates structured data for Google-supported rich results. Review errors and warnings and ensure the markup matches the page content. Passing the test does not guarantee appearance in search.
Repeated moves left redirects from an old article URL through an intermediate URL to the current one. The final destination is known. Which improvement is appropriate?
Answer: Redirect each old URL directly to the final current URL
When the destination is known, redirect old URLs directly to the corresponding final article. Extra hops add latency and failure points. Update internal links to current URLs and check for loops.