There are a lot of idiots charlatans still out there promoting meta tag optimization services, so I decided I'd write a short list of questions to quickly weed them out. Any decent search engine marketer should be able to answer all of these questions at least partially correctly. I may need this list rather soon, so why not give it away in exchange for some user-feedback -- and perhaps a little of something enumerated in question #4?
1. What significance do the meta keywords & description tags have?
Answer: The meta keyword tag is almost entirely useless, as search engines ignore it -- except perhaps for totally non-competitive keywords or misspellings. The meta description tag is mostly moot as a ranking factor, but may affect CTR, as it is often displayed in search engine results pages if the description contains copy that pertains to the query.
2. In general, are visible on-page factors or invisible factors more important ranking factors? Why?
Answer: Visible on-page factors are more influential. This is because search engines are more likely to trust content that humans will actually see.
3. What is PageRank? Describe its importance.
Answer: PageRank is Google's mathematical representation of the likelihood of a visitor randomly arriving on a given page. It is an indicator of page importance, and Google uses this as a factor in search engine rankings. Any link theoretically increases PageRank, but Google assesses the relevancy of the said links as well. The Google toolbar should not be worshiped, however, as it shows outdated and/or irrelevant data -- but the concept itself is useful. Some SEOs also consider a high PageRank as a trust-building element.
4. What are a few ways to gain links?
Answer: Soliciting links from non-competitors, social engineering (donations, "Paris Hilton SEO," etc.), link baiting.
5. What is black hat SEO, and what are a few black hat techniques?
Answer: Black hat SEO refers to techniques outside the TOS of a search engine. A few examples are HTML insertion, referrer spam, cloaking (if you're not the NY times), blog/guestbook spam, and using links from link farms.
6. What is duplicate content? What is a spider trap?
Answer: Duplicate content is any content that appears elsewhere within your web site or perhaps somewhere else on the internet. A spider trap is a gross manifestation of duplicate content where a spider spends hours on a site indexing useless or redundant content.
These are the questions I'd ask.
Feel free to leave a comment to suggest other questions you'd ask. I want to improve this list.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
some poser seos will be dishonest about their size and/or capabilities, as well as the diy/in-house factor regarding what options people have. so questions like "can seo only be done right through consultants?" would be good.
here's another good one: "is seo a must-have for all businesses?" illegit seos might say so, moreover making it sound like everyone needs it equally (very much).
[sr]
p.s. - maybe break the spider trap bit out as a diff question or clarify it. on-site scripts for detection and monitoring of specific bots, automated ip banning as a defensive maneuver when known malicious bots are detected... all that also gets called spide trapping in some circles.
November 16th, 2006 at 4:09 am
"cloaking (if you're not the NY times)"
November 16th, 2006 at 4:12 am
Interesting post. There are a few colleagues of mine (particularly my boss) who still believes that SEO is simply adding some meta tags and you will rank #1.
I might have to ask this list of him
November 16th, 2006 at 5:28 am
I´d like to add this beneath question #4
Does it matter where my links come from and how will they affect my rankings?
Answer: Any hypertext-link can influence your ranking. What one link exactly does cannot be said as it depends on several factors like 'How trusted is the linking domain?', 'What anchor text is used?', 'How many trusted inbound links does the linking page have?' and so on...
In general a few high quality links can easily outrank a bunch of crap links.
November 16th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
I have found meta keywords and description can have an effect on Adsense relevance.
If you define Linkfarms as Blackhat, how would you define a mininet of sites with useful content?
Would you class the Wordpress.com tags system as white grey or blackhat? (all you have to do is use a tag to get some great backlinks)
November 17th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
[...] Jaimie at SEO Egghead gives us 6 Questions To Weed Out Charlatan SEOs. I might add “What are social networks and how are they important?” to the list. If they don’t know that one, well . . . I’d also ask “how do I get more hits for my site?” — if they don’t go on to explain the difference between hits, uniques, page views, etc., I’d stay away! [...]