Below are some important Search Engine Marketing interview questions which are asked in most MNC company interviews for beginners or professionals.
31. Do search engines index ALT text descriptions for JPEG and other image files?
Yes, most search engines, including Google, look at your ALT tags when indexing your Web page. For many sites, particularly image-heavy sites, ALT text is one of the few elements available for the search engines to index. If your page has no text at all on it, it can still get a high search engine placement by using ALT text.
32. What are doorway pages, and should I use doorway pages?
Doorway pages are Web pages designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as doorways to your site. Doorway pages are a very bad idea for several reasons, though many SEO firms use them routinely.
As a rule of thumb, if you can't reach the page by following the site navigation, then it is a doorway page. You are not supposed to "visit" the page. Instead, you are just supposed to find it in the search results and then click through to get to the site in question. In essence, a doorway page is no more than a one-page click-through advertisement for a website. However, when you are searching, you don't want to visit one-page click-through advertisements for a website. You want to visit websites. Think of doorway pages as giant banner ads, only worse. You're searching for "widgets" and instead of getting a widget site, you get a page that says, "click here for widgets." You just did that! Now they're asking you to do it again. Are you going to click?
33. What are meta descriptions? What is the meta description tag?
Though meta description tags are not a major factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. Both the meta keywords tag and the meta description tag contribute to your search engine ranking, and the meta description tag influences the likelihood that a person will actually click on the search engine results page and visit your site.
The meta description tag is intended to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. Think of the Yahoo! directory. You see your site title followed by a brief description of your site or business. The meta description tag is designed to provide a brief description of your site which can be used by search engines or directories. The meta description tag takes the following form:
<meta name="description" content="Brief description of the contents of your page.">
34. What are meta re-redirect tags or meta refresh tags?
The meta redirect (meta refresh) tag is a meta http-equiv tag which, when inserted into the header of an HTML document, will cause the visitor's browser to load a new web page after a specified number of seconds have passed after the initial document has loaded, basically redirecting the visitor to the new page. The webmaster specifies the new page to be loaded and the number of seconds that must pass before the new page is loaded. The meta redirect or refresh tag takes the following form:
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="4;url=http://www.yourdomain.com/yourlink.html">
35. How important are meta tags now?
Though meta keywords tag and meta description tags are not the main factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. A meta description tag is supposed to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. A meta keyword tag is supposed to be a summary list of the most important words on your page. They were both proposed in order to make using the web easier. Unfortunately, webmasters over the years have abused meta tags so much that search engine creators have had to de-emphasize their importance in their algorithms.
36. What exactly is a spider?
A spider is a piece of software that follows links throughout the Internet, grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine databases.
Spiders follow links from one page to another and from one site to another. That is the primary reason why links to your site are so critical. Getting links to your website from other websites will give the search engine spiders more opportunities to find and re-index your site. The more times they find links to your site, the more times they will stop by and visit. This has been true since spiders began. Recently there has been an incredible amount of attention paid to links. That's because Google came clean and said in public that the number and quality of links to your site will directly impact its rankings in the search results.
37. Does the spider program run through all links on a Web page?
No spider ever has indexed every link on the Internet. The Internet is growing so fast that it is difficult for any to keep up. There is a strong chance that every page on YOUR website will be indexed, and that every link on each of your Web pages will be followed.
Generally, when a new site is launched, a search engine spider will index the home page only. On subsequent visits, the spider will go deeper and deeper into your site, over a period of time that is determined by the number and quality of links from other websites that point to your website. Getting your site listed in the major directories will accelerate the time it takes to have your site fully spidered. Remember, links from directories are links to your website. Google specifically recommends submitting your site to Yahoo and to The Open Directory if you're having trouble getting indexed by the Google spider.
38. Is there any way to prevent a spider from grabbing URLs that you want to keep off search engines?
Absolutely - there are many ways, and you should use them all. For a quick overview, search for robots or spiders on Google, visit The Web Robots Page, or visit B.4 Notes on helping search engines index your website from the World Wide Web Consortium. The most fool-proof method to block spidders is to password protect any files that you don't want indexed by the search engines. See Can a search engine index pages that are password protected?
In general, you should create a robots.txt file for the root folder on your site, use the robots meta tag on pages you don't want indexed, and password protect any files you're serious about protecting.
Here is a robots meta tag:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
39. How do I get my site listed in the Google Directory?
To get your site listed in the Google Directory, you need to get your site listed in the Open Directory. The Google Directory is created from the data included in the Open Directory.
40. How do I submit my site to The Open Directory (ODP or DMOZ)?
How to submit step-by-step:
1) Go to http://dmoz.org.
2) Use (a) the search engine or (b) the directory links to find the perfect category for your site.
3) Look in the upper right-hand corner of the directory page for a text link that says, "add URL" and click on it.
4) Carefully read the page. If you've used all of your wits, and you are truly at the most appropriate category for your site, then fill out the form. Just put your URL in the text field labeled "Site URL" which already includes "http://." Then put the title of your site in the text field labeled "Title of Site." Put a description of your website in the field marked "Site Description." Put your e-mail address in the field marked "Your E-mail Address," and hit the button at the bottom of the page marked "Submit."
That's the whole process. Following are tips for ensuring that you get each step right, which is harder for some people than many would guess.
31. Do search engines index ALT text descriptions for JPEG and other image files?
Yes, most search engines, including Google, look at your ALT tags when indexing your Web page. For many sites, particularly image-heavy sites, ALT text is one of the few elements available for the search engines to index. If your page has no text at all on it, it can still get a high search engine placement by using ALT text.
32. What are doorway pages, and should I use doorway pages?
Doorway pages are Web pages designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as doorways to your site. Doorway pages are a very bad idea for several reasons, though many SEO firms use them routinely.
As a rule of thumb, if you can't reach the page by following the site navigation, then it is a doorway page. You are not supposed to "visit" the page. Instead, you are just supposed to find it in the search results and then click through to get to the site in question. In essence, a doorway page is no more than a one-page click-through advertisement for a website. However, when you are searching, you don't want to visit one-page click-through advertisements for a website. You want to visit websites. Think of doorway pages as giant banner ads, only worse. You're searching for "widgets" and instead of getting a widget site, you get a page that says, "click here for widgets." You just did that! Now they're asking you to do it again. Are you going to click?
33. What are meta descriptions? What is the meta description tag?
Though meta description tags are not a major factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. Both the meta keywords tag and the meta description tag contribute to your search engine ranking, and the meta description tag influences the likelihood that a person will actually click on the search engine results page and visit your site.
The meta description tag is intended to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. Think of the Yahoo! directory. You see your site title followed by a brief description of your site or business. The meta description tag is designed to provide a brief description of your site which can be used by search engines or directories. The meta description tag takes the following form:
<meta name="description" content="Brief description of the contents of your page.">
34. What are meta re-redirect tags or meta refresh tags?
The meta redirect (meta refresh) tag is a meta http-equiv tag which, when inserted into the header of an HTML document, will cause the visitor's browser to load a new web page after a specified number of seconds have passed after the initial document has loaded, basically redirecting the visitor to the new page. The webmaster specifies the new page to be loaded and the number of seconds that must pass before the new page is loaded. The meta redirect or refresh tag takes the following form:
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="4;url=http://www.yourdomain.com/yourlink.html">
35. How important are meta tags now?
Though meta keywords tag and meta description tags are not the main factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. A meta description tag is supposed to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. A meta keyword tag is supposed to be a summary list of the most important words on your page. They were both proposed in order to make using the web easier. Unfortunately, webmasters over the years have abused meta tags so much that search engine creators have had to de-emphasize their importance in their algorithms.
36. What exactly is a spider?
A spider is a piece of software that follows links throughout the Internet, grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine databases.
Spiders follow links from one page to another and from one site to another. That is the primary reason why links to your site are so critical. Getting links to your website from other websites will give the search engine spiders more opportunities to find and re-index your site. The more times they find links to your site, the more times they will stop by and visit. This has been true since spiders began. Recently there has been an incredible amount of attention paid to links. That's because Google came clean and said in public that the number and quality of links to your site will directly impact its rankings in the search results.
37. Does the spider program run through all links on a Web page?
No spider ever has indexed every link on the Internet. The Internet is growing so fast that it is difficult for any to keep up. There is a strong chance that every page on YOUR website will be indexed, and that every link on each of your Web pages will be followed.
Generally, when a new site is launched, a search engine spider will index the home page only. On subsequent visits, the spider will go deeper and deeper into your site, over a period of time that is determined by the number and quality of links from other websites that point to your website. Getting your site listed in the major directories will accelerate the time it takes to have your site fully spidered. Remember, links from directories are links to your website. Google specifically recommends submitting your site to Yahoo and to The Open Directory if you're having trouble getting indexed by the Google spider.
38. Is there any way to prevent a spider from grabbing URLs that you want to keep off search engines?
Absolutely - there are many ways, and you should use them all. For a quick overview, search for robots or spiders on Google, visit The Web Robots Page, or visit B.4 Notes on helping search engines index your website from the World Wide Web Consortium. The most fool-proof method to block spidders is to password protect any files that you don't want indexed by the search engines. See Can a search engine index pages that are password protected?
In general, you should create a robots.txt file for the root folder on your site, use the robots meta tag on pages you don't want indexed, and password protect any files you're serious about protecting.
Here is a robots meta tag:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
39. How do I get my site listed in the Google Directory?
To get your site listed in the Google Directory, you need to get your site listed in the Open Directory. The Google Directory is created from the data included in the Open Directory.
40. How do I submit my site to The Open Directory (ODP or DMOZ)?
How to submit step-by-step:
1) Go to http://dmoz.org.
2) Use (a) the search engine or (b) the directory links to find the perfect category for your site.
3) Look in the upper right-hand corner of the directory page for a text link that says, "add URL" and click on it.
4) Carefully read the page. If you've used all of your wits, and you are truly at the most appropriate category for your site, then fill out the form. Just put your URL in the text field labeled "Site URL" which already includes "http://." Then put the title of your site in the text field labeled "Title of Site." Put a description of your website in the field marked "Site Description." Put your e-mail address in the field marked "Your E-mail Address," and hit the button at the bottom of the page marked "Submit."
That's the whole process. Following are tips for ensuring that you get each step right, which is harder for some people than many would guess.
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