100 SEO Interview Questions and Answers (2026)

Updated October 2026.

SEO interview questions test whether you know how search engines crawl, index and rank pages, and whether you can fix a real site when something breaks. This page has 100 questions with model answers, from fresher basics to scenarios for 2 to 5 years of experience, plus the 10 answers most guides still get wrong.

I'm Raviraj Ramavarapu, founder of Compound Lab, a retention agency. I run SEO for my own site, compoundlab.in, every week. Keyword research, Search Console, structured data, indexing, cannibalisation fixes and getting pages ready for AI search. I also hire for digital marketing roles. Every answer here is the one I'd want to hear across the table, and the examples come from my own site, not from a textbook.

How this page works. The 100 questions are split into five sections of 20, from the basics to scenarios for people with some experience. Tap your section below to jump straight to it, or scroll down to read everything in order. Want to test yourself before reading? The last box opens a 10-question mock interview, with your score at the end and no sign-up.

What interviewers look for in an SEO candidate

Definitions get you through the first round. After that, the interviewer wants to know three things. Can you find out why a page isn't performing, using Search Console and analytics rather than guesses. Do you know which advice is current, because SEO changes every year and many guides haven't kept up. And can you explain one piece of work end to end, with a number.

Weak answer	Strong answer
"Keyword density should be 1 to 2%"	"There's no target density. I make sure the page answers the search better than what ranks"
"I'd build backlinks"	"I'd find out why it dropped in Search Console first, then decide"
Lists ten tools	"I use Search Console daily. Here's a report I acted on"
Talks about rankings only	Talks about the clicks and sales the rankings bring

SEO also doesn't work alone. An article catches someone searching, the website converts them, and other channels bring them back. I show that whole path in my digital marketing interview questions guide.

Mock interview: test yourself in 5 minutes

Want a longer test, with basic, intermediate and advanced levels and a scorecard you can share? Take the free SEO quiz.

SEO interview questions for freshers

1. What is SEO, and why does it matter?

SEO (search engine optimisation) is making your pages easy for search engines to find, understand and trust, so they show up for the searches your customers make. It matters because those visits keep coming without paying per click, and the people arriving are already looking for what you offer.

2. How does a search engine work?

In four steps. It crawls the web by following links and sitemaps, renders and indexes the pages it finds, ranks the indexed pages for each search, and serves results, often with extras like images, videos or an AI Overview. Google explains this in How Search works.

3. What is the difference between crawling and indexing?

Crawling is Googlebot visiting a page. Indexing is Google storing it so it can appear in results. A page can be crawled and still not indexed, if Google decides it isn't useful enough or is a duplicate.

4. What is the difference between organic and paid results?

Organic results are earned and free per click. Paid results are ads, marked "Sponsored", bought through Google Ads. Ads stop when the budget stops. Organic rankings keep working, but take months to build.

5. What are SERP features?

Everything on the results page beyond the ten blue links. AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask, image and video results, the local map pack, shopping results and sitelinks. They change how many people click through, so check which ones show for your keyword.

6. What is search intent?

What the person wants from a search. Informational (learn something), navigational (reach a specific site), commercial (compare options) and transactional (buy). Your page has to match it. Nobody searching "what is SEO" wants a sales page.

7. What is the difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords?

Short-tail keywords are broad, like "SEO". Long-tail keywords are specific, like "SEO interview questions for freshers". Long-tail searches have less volume, but the searcher knows what they want, and a new site can rank for them much sooner.

8. How do you do keyword research?

Start from what the customer asks, then check demand and competition. I use Google Keyword Planner for volumes in India, then read the actual Google results for each keyword to see who ranks and what they miss. Keyword Planner only shows ranges, like 1K to 10K a month, unless you're spending on ads, so I treat the numbers as a guide, not a count.

Listening for. That you look at the results page, not only the volume. A keyword where giant sites own every result is a different job from one where weak pages rank.

9. What is keyword difficulty?

A score from tools like Ahrefs or Semrush estimating how hard it is to rank for a keyword, mostly from the links pointing at the pages that rank. It's the tool's estimate, not a Google number. Use it to compare keywords, then check the results page yourself.

10. What is the difference between on-page, off-page and technical SEO?

On-page is the content and HTML of the page, like titles, headings and text. Off-page is what happens elsewhere, mainly links and mentions. Technical SEO is whether search engines can crawl, render and index the site at all, like speed, sitemaps, redirects and structured data.

11. What is a backlink, and what makes a good one?

A link from another website to yours. A good one comes from a relevant, trusted site, sits inside real content, and sends real visitors. One link from a respected site in your field is worth more than hundreds from unrelated directories, and paying for links breaks Google's spam policies.

12. What is the difference between nofollow, sponsored and ugc links?

They're attributes that tell Google about a link. Sponsored marks paid links, ugc marks user content like comments, and nofollow covers the rest. Since 2019, Google treats all three as hints rather than strict rules, so a nofollow link can still be used for discovery. Google's link guidelines explain each one.

13. What is anchor text?

The clickable words in a link. Descriptive anchor text, like "SEO interview questions", tells Google and readers what the linked page is about. "Click here" tells them nothing. Exact-match anchors on every external link look unnatural.

14. What is Domain Authority?

A score made by Moz, a tool company, that estimates how strong a site's links are. Google doesn't use it. Similar scores from Ahrefs (Domain Rating) and Semrush (Authority Score) are also third-party estimates. They're useful for comparing sites, as long as you say so.

15. What is the difference between white hat and black hat SEO?

White hat follows search engine guidelines, like useful content and earned links. Black hat tries to trick rankings, like hidden text, bought links and spun content. Black hat can work for a while, then a manual action or an update wipes the site out.

16. What is E-E-A-T?

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. It's how Google's quality rater guidelines describe content worth trusting, and Google added the first E, experience, in December 2022. It isn't a single ranking score. In practice, show who wrote the page, why they know, and first-hand detail no one else has.

17. What is a Google core update?

A broad change to how Google ranks pages, released several times a year and listed on the Google Search Status Dashboard. Rankings can move a lot for a few weeks. Google's advice is to improve content quality rather than chase quick fixes.

18. What is local SEO?

Getting a business found for searches with a place in them, like "dentist near me" or "bakery in Indiranagar". The main lever is the Google Business Profile, plus reviews, consistent contact details and local pages on the website.

19. Which SEO tools have you used?

Name what you've opened and what you did. My daily tools are Google Search Console for queries, rankings and indexing, Google Keyword Planner for demand, and Google Analytics 4 for what organic visitors do. Paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush add backlink and competitor data. A fresher can say "I set up Search Console for my blog and fixed two pages that weren't indexed".

20. How long does SEO take to show results?

For a new site, usually months. Long-tail pages can start ranking in weeks, and competitive terms take longer, mostly because they need links. Anyone promising number one in a month is guessing.

Back to all five sections

On-page and content SEO interview questions

21. What makes a good title tag?

The main keyword near the start, a clear promise, and a length that fits on screen, roughly 50 to 60 characters. Google cuts titles by pixel width, not a fixed count. Each page needs its own title, and Google may rewrite one that doesn't match the page.

22. Does the meta description affect rankings?

Not directly. It's the snippet under the title, so a good one wins more clicks. Write it as a short pitch for the click, with the keyword, since Google bolds matching words. Google often rewrites it to match the search.

23. How should you use header tags?

One H1 that says what the page is about, then H2s for the main sections and H3s inside them, like a table of contents. They help readers scan and help Google understand the structure. More than one H1 won't break anything, but one is cleaner.

24. How do you optimise a page for a keyword?

Put the keyword in the title, the H1, the URL and the first paragraph, then answer the search better than anything that ranks. Cover the sub-questions people ask, add your own data or experience, and link to related pages. Don't repeat the keyword to hit a percentage.

25. Why does internal linking matter?

Links between your own pages help Google find them, understand what each is about, and see which pages matter most. On my site, every new blog post links to at least six related pages with descriptive anchor text, and big guides link to their deeper spin-off pages and back.

26. What makes a good URL?

Short, lowercase, words separated by hyphens, and describing the page. Mine is /blog/seo-interview-questions. Avoid dates in blog URLs, because they make a page look old after an update.

27. How do you optimise images for SEO?

Write alt text that describes what the image shows, for screen readers and for Google. Use a descriptive file name, compress the file, and set width and height so the page doesn't jump while loading. I also serve a smaller version on phones, so mobile pages load faster.

28. What is a featured snippet, and how do you win one?

A highlighted answer above or near the top results, pulled from one page. Answer the question directly in the first one or two sentences under a heading that matches the search, then expand. Lists and tables win list and table snippets.

29. What is thin content, and what is duplicate content?

Thin content is a page with little useful substance, like a 200-word page that answers nothing. Duplicate content is the same or nearly the same text on several URLs. Google doesn't penalise ordinary duplicates, but it picks one version to show, and it may not be the one you want.

30. What is keyword cannibalisation?

When two of your own pages target the same search, so Google can't tell which to rank and both do worse. I have a live case. My Kwik Engage review sat around position 11.6, while my Kwik Engage vs WebEngage comparison got 124 impressions at position 15.3 and no clicks, both showing for the same "Kwik Engage" searches. The fix is to decide which page owns the term and give the other a different angle. I made the review the owner, retitled it around Kwik Engage and its pricing, and pointed the comparison at "Kwik Engage vs WebEngage" searches, with a link to the review near the top.

31. What is a topic cluster?

A main guide on a broad topic, linked to and from detailed pages on each sub-topic. My digital marketing interview questions guide is a main page, and this SEO page goes deeper on one of its five sections. It shows Google you cover the topic properly, not with one stray post.

32. How do you update old content?

Check Search Console for pages that are losing clicks or stuck on page two. Update facts, add what's missing, improve the title, and change the "Updated" date only when you've made a real change. Re-dating a page without changing it doesn't fool Google.

33. What happened to Google's helpful content system?

It was a separate system launched in 2022 to reward content written for people rather than search engines. In March 2024, Google folded it into its core ranking systems, so helpfulness is now judged as part of every core update.

34. How do you write for both people and search engines?

Answer the question first, in plain words, then go deeper. Use the words searchers use, structure the page with clear headings, and add something only you can, like data, screenshots or experience. If a sentence is only there for Google, cut it.

35. How long should an SEO article be?

As long as it takes to answer the search better than what ranks, and no longer. Check what ranks for the keyword. A definition needs 300 words. A list of 100 interview questions needs several thousand. Word count isn't a ranking factor.

36. What goes into a content brief?

The target keyword and intent, the searches it should also answer, what the top results cover and miss, the headings, the internal links to add, the facts to source, and who the reader is. For this page, my brief listed 10 gaps across the ranking pages before a word was written.

37. Can you use AI to write SEO content?

Google judges content by its quality, not by how it was made. Using AI to mass-produce pages mainly to rank is spam under its scaled content abuse policy. I use AI to research and draft, then check every fact and add what only I know before anything goes live.

38. Does linking to other websites help SEO?

Linking to good sources helps readers and shows the page is well researched. It won't lift rankings on its own, but it doesn't hurt either. Mark paid or untrusted links with sponsored or nofollow.

39. What is a content gap analysis?

Comparing what the ranking pages cover with what searchers need, to find what's missing. Before writing this page, I read the top ten results. Most still listed First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital, several gave keyword density targets, none had a self-test, and none used real data. Those gaps shaped this page.

40. How do you get backlinks for a new site?

Make something worth linking to, then tell the people who'd care. Original data, a free tool or a guide better than what exists. For my site, the mock interviews on these pages are the linkable part, and my plan is to share them with college placement cells and learning communities. Guest posts, digital PR and getting listed where your audience looks work too.

Back to all five sections

Technical SEO interview questions

41. What does robots.txt do?

It tells crawlers which parts of a site not to crawl. It controls crawling, not indexing. A page blocked in robots.txt can still appear in results if other sites link to it, just without a description.

42. When do you use a noindex tag?

When a page should stay out of search results, like thank-you pages, internal search results or drafts. On my site, draft pages are built with noindex so they can be previewed without being indexed. Google has to crawl the page to see the tag, so don't also block it in robots.txt.

43. What is an XML sitemap?

A file listing the URLs you want indexed, submitted in Search Console. Google uses lastmod if it's accurate, and ignores the priority and changefreq fields. Two things I learned on my own site. A domain property in Search Console wants the full sitemap URL, not just "sitemap.xml". And Google had last read my sitemap the day before I added 11 new pages, so it had 47 URLs on record instead of 60 until I resubmitted it.

44. What is a canonical tag?

A tag that tells Google which URL is the main version when similar pages exist, like a product reachable from three category paths. Google treats it as a strong hint, not an order. If the pages are too different, Google may pick its own canonical.

45. What is the difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect?

A 301 is a permanent move, and tells Google to move ranking signals to the new URL. A 302 is temporary, and tells Google to keep the old one. Google handles both, and a 302 left in place for a long time is often treated like a 301. For a permanent change, use a 301.

46. What are Core Web Vitals?

Google's three measures of page experience. Largest Contentful Paint (how fast the main content loads, good under 2.5 seconds), Interaction to Next Paint (how fast the page responds to a tap, good under 200 milliseconds) and Cumulative Layout Shift (how much the layout jumps, good under 0.1). Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay in March 2024. Thresholds are on web.dev.

47. How do you improve Largest Contentful Paint?

Make the biggest thing at the top load first. Compress and size the hero image, load it with high priority instead of lazily, cut render-blocking scripts and styles, and use a fast server or CDN.

48. What causes layout shift, and how do you fix it?

Images, ads and embeds that load without reserved space, and fonts that swap late. Set width and height on every image and video, reserve space for ads, and preload key fonts. My site's build adds image dimensions automatically for this reason.

49. What is mobile-first indexing?

Google crawls and indexes the mobile version of a page and uses it for ranking. Google now indexes almost every site this way. So whatever is missing on your mobile page, like content hidden behind a desktop-only tab, may as well not exist.

50. What is structured data, and which types have you used?

Code, usually schema.org in JSON-LD, that describes a page to search engines. On my site, blog posts carry Article (BlogPosting) and BreadcrumbList, the kit pages carry Product markup, and FAQ sections carry FAQPage. Search Console shows my kit pages as valid for product snippets and merchant listings. Test it with Google's Rich Results Test.

51. What is crawl budget, and when does it matter?

How many pages Google is willing and able to crawl on a site in a given time. It mainly matters for very large sites with hundreds of thousands of pages, or sites whose pages change daily. A 70-page site like mine doesn't need to worry about it, as Google's crawl budget guide says.

52. What is JavaScript SEO?

Making sure content that loads through JavaScript can be crawled and indexed. Google can render JavaScript, but it's an extra step that can delay or miss content. Server-side rendering or static pages are safer for anything that needs to rank. Links should be real anchor tags with an href.

53. What is hreflang?

A tag that tells Google which language or country version of a page to show, like en-IN for India and en-US for the US. Each version must point to all the others, including itself. It's for sites with real regional versions, not a way to rank in more countries.

54. Does HTTPS matter for SEO?

Yes, as a small ranking signal, and much more for trust, since browsers mark plain HTTP pages as not secure. Redirect every HTTP URL to HTTPS with a 301 and fix mixed-content warnings.

55. What do the Page indexing statuses in Search Console mean?

They tell you why a page isn't indexed. "Discovered, currently not indexed" means Google knows the URL but hasn't crawled it yet. One of my kit pages sat there, found through my sitemap and an internal link, until I asked Google to crawl it. "Crawled, currently not indexed" means Google looked and decided not to index it, usually a quality or duplication problem. Others include noindex, redirect, not found (404) and alternate page with a proper canonical.

56. How do you get a new page indexed quickly?

Link to it from pages Google already crawls, add it to the sitemap, and use URL Inspection in Search Console to request indexing. Two things I ran into. Request indexing needs full access to the Search Console property, so a user with restricted access can't use it. And it has a quota Google doesn't publish. On my site it ran out after a run of requests, worked again a few hours later, then ran out again.

57. What is the difference between a 404, a soft 404 and a 410?

A 404 says the page doesn't exist. A 410 says it's gone for good, which can drop it from the index slightly faster. A soft 404 is a page that returns a normal 200 status but looks empty or says "not found", which confuses Google. Fix soft 404s by returning a real 404 or adding real content.

58. What are redirect chains and loops?

A chain is one redirect leading to another and another, like A to B to C. A loop sends the browser in a circle and never loads. Chains slow pages and waste crawling, so point every old URL straight to its final destination.

59. How do you handle pagination and faceted navigation?

Give each paginated page its own URL and canonical, and link them normally. Google no longer uses rel=next and rel=prev. For filters on ecommerce sites, like size and colour, decide which combinations people search for and let those be indexed. Keep the rest out with canonicals, noindex or robots.txt, so Google doesn't crawl thousands of near-duplicates.

60. What does a technical SEO audit include?

Crawlability (robots.txt, sitemaps, internal links), indexing (Page indexing report, canonicals, noindex), site speed and Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, redirects and broken links, structured data, HTTPS, and duplicate content. A good audit ends with the problems ranked by impact, not a list of 200 warnings.

Back to all five sections

AI search, ecommerce and local SEO interview questions

61. What are Google's AI Overviews?

AI-written answers that Google shows above the results for many searches, with links to the pages they drew from. Google also runs AI Mode, a fuller AI search experience. For simple questions, fewer people click through, so being one of the cited pages matters more.

62. What is GEO?

Generative engine optimisation, also called AEO (answer engine optimisation). It means making content that AI search tools, like Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, pick up and cite. Most of it is good SEO, like clear answers, real expertise and a crawlable page, with more weight on being quotable.

63. How do you get cited in AI Overviews?

Google says there's no special markup or trick for it. Pages that get cited tend to rank well already, answer the question in the first lines under a clear heading, and add something a summary can't. When I researched this page's sister guide, the AI Overview for "digital marketing interview questions" cited course sites with short, scannable answers under clear headings.

64. How does ChatGPT search find pages?

OpenAI says ChatGPT search uses third-party search providers and content from partners, and Bing is widely reported to be one of those providers. So a site missing from Bing's index is easier to miss in ChatGPT too. Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, which can import a Search Console property, and allow OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, in robots.txt.

65. What is llms.txt?

A proposed text file at the root of a site that summarises the site for AI tools, like a sitemap written for language models. My site publishes one, because it costs nothing. No major search engine has said it uses the file for ranking or citations, so don't present it as a ranking factor.

66. How do you measure traffic from AI tools?

In GA4, look at referrals from domains like chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot.microsoft.com and gemini.google.com, and group them into a custom "AI" channel. Clicks from Google's AI Overviews are counted as normal Google organic traffic in Search Console, not separately.

67. Does Google penalise AI-written content?

Not for being AI-written. Google's guidance is that it rewards helpful content however it's made, and treats content made mainly to manipulate rankings as spam, whoever wrote it. The risk is publishing unchecked, generic pages at scale.

68. What are zero-click searches?

Searches where the person gets the answer on the results page and doesn't click, from an AI Overview, a featured snippet or a quick answer box. They're common for definitions and facts. Plan content that needs a click to be useful, like tools, data and full guides, and still aim to be the cited source.

69. How do you optimise an ecommerce product page?

A unique title and description written for the buyer, not copied from the manufacturer. Clear photos with alt text, price and stock visible, reviews on the page, Product structured data, and a fast mobile page. Answer the questions buyers ask before they buy, like sizing, ingredients and delivery time.

70. Why do category or collection pages matter for SEO?

They usually rank for the broad, high-volume searches, like "cast iron cookware", while product pages rank for specific ones. Give each category a short intro that helps the shopper, clean filters, and internal links to its best products.

71. What do you do with out-of-stock products?

If it's coming back, keep the page live, mark it out of stock in the page and the structured data, and offer a back-in-stock alert or alternatives. If it's gone for good, redirect it to the closest product or category with a 301. Don't let it return a soft 404.

72. What are merchant listings and product snippets?

Two ways Google shows product information. Product snippets add price, stock and ratings to a normal result. Merchant listings let products appear in shopping experiences across Google. Both come from Product structured data, and Search Console has a report for each.

73. What's wrong with using manufacturer product descriptions?

Hundreds of other sellers use the same text, so Google has no reason to rank your page over theirs. Rewrite descriptions for your buyer, and add what others don't have, like your own photos, how-to-use details and real customer reviews.

74. What are common SEO problems on Shopify stores?

The same product reachable at several URLs (with and without the collection path), filter and tag pages creating near-duplicates, apps that slow the theme, and thin collection pages. Shopify adds canonical tags for the product duplicates, so the main work is speed, content and keeping tag pages out of the index.

75. How is marketplace SEO different from website SEO?

On Amazon or Flipkart, you rank inside the marketplace's own search, which weighs sales, conversion, reviews and the listing's keywords. On your own site, you're ranking in Google. Brands usually need both, with the website building the customer relationship the marketplace keeps for itself.

76. What is a Google Business Profile?

The free listing that shows a business on Google Maps and in the local pack, formerly called Google My Business. Complete every field, pick the right categories, add real photos, post updates, and reply to reviews.

77. What are local citations and NAP consistency?

Citations are mentions of a business's name, address and phone number (NAP) on other sites, like Justdial, IndiaMART and maps apps. Consistent details everywhere help Google trust the business's location.

78. How do reviews affect local SEO?

Google says prominence is one of the three things it uses to rank local results, and reviews are part of prominence. More, recent, genuine reviews with replies help. Buying or gating reviews breaks Google's policies.

79. How does Google rank local results?

On relevance (how well the profile matches the search), distance (how far the business is from the searcher or the place searched), and prominence (how well known it is, including reviews and links). Google lists all three in its local ranking help page.

80. How would you handle SEO for Hindi and mixed-language searches in India?

Find out how your buyers actually search. Many type Hindi words in English letters, like "sasta mobile cover". If there's real demand in Hindi script, create proper Hindi pages with hreflang hi-IN, not machine-translated copies. For Hinglish searches, use the words people type in titles and headings on the English page.

Back to all five sections

SEO analytics and scenario questions for 2 to 5 years of experience

81. What is the difference between Search Console and Google Analytics?

Search Console shows how the site does on Google before the click. Queries, impressions, clicks, average position and indexing. Google Analytics shows what people do after they arrive, like engagement, sign-ups and sales. You need both to judge SEO.

82. Which SEO KPIs would you report?

Organic clicks and impressions, the rankings of the keywords that matter, indexed pages, and above all the sign-ups or sales from organic visits. Report trends over months, compare like periods, and separate brand searches from non-brand, since brand searches would come anyway.

83. A page has high impressions but low CTR. What do you do?

Check its average position first, because low CTR at position 15 is normal. If it's on page one, rewrite the title and description to match the search and promise something specific, check whether an AI Overview or snippet is taking the click, and add structured data where it qualifies.

84. What does average position in Search Console mean?

The average of your page's highest position each time it showed, across all the searches it showed for. It mixes many searches together, so filter by query and page before drawing conclusions.

85. Why does a lot of website traffic show as direct in GA4?

Visits with no referrer, like typed URLs, bookmarks, links in some apps and emails without UTM tags, and your own team's visits. When my site launched, most of its traffic showed as direct, and much of it was our own testing. Filter internal traffic in GA4 and tag campaign links, so organic and other channels get proper credit.

86. How do you show the return on SEO?

Take the sales or leads from organic traffic and compare them with what the same clicks would cost on Google Ads, then with what SEO costs in people and tools. SEO compounds, so show it over quarters, and show which pages bring the money.

87. "Organic traffic dropped 30% this month. How would you find out why?"

Start in Search Console. Did impressions fall (rankings or demand) or only clicks (the results page changed, like a new AI Overview)? Compare by page and query, check the Google Search Status Dashboard for an update on those dates, and check the site for a redesign, broken redirects, or pages set to noindex by mistake.

88. "A page is stuck on page two. How do you get it to page one?"

Find the queries it shows for in Search Console, then compare the page with what ranks above it. Usually it's missing sub-topics, a weaker title, fewer internal links or fewer external links. My MoEngage review sat around position 14.7. Its Search Console queries included "moengage trial", "moengage sms" and "moengage push amplification", which the page didn't answer directly. I rewrote the title and description, added those answers, and linked it from my platform guides. Search Console will show whether it moves.

89. "We're redesigning the website. How do you protect rankings?"

List every URL that gets traffic or links before launch, keep URLs the same where possible, and 301 redirect every one that changes to its closest new page. Carry over titles, content, internal links and structured data, test on staging, submit the new sitemap, and watch Search Console daily for the first weeks.

90. "Many of our pages say 'Discovered, currently not indexed'. What do you do?"

Google knows the URLs but hasn't crawled them. On a small site, it's usually because the pages are new or few links point to them. Link to them from strong pages, keep them in the sitemap and request indexing for the most important ones. On a large site, it can mean Google doesn't think the pages are worth crawling, so look at quality and duplication.

91. "Two of our pages compete for the same keyword. How do you decide which one keeps it?"

Look at which page has more clicks, better links and a closer match to the search intent. Make that the owner, sharpen the other toward a different angle, and link from the second to the first with the keyword as anchor text. If both say the same thing, merge them and 301 the weaker one. That's what I did with my two Kwik Engage posts. The review owns "Kwik Engage", and the comparison owns "Kwik Engage vs WebEngage".

92. "A core update hit our traffic. What now?"

Don't panic-edit during the rollout. Once it finishes, compare which pages lost and which gained, and read what replaced you. Losses usually point to content that's thinner, older or less trustworthy than what now ranks. Improve those pages properly, and expect recovery to show at a later update, not the next week.

93. "Our product page takes 8 seconds to load on mobile. What do you check?"

Run it through PageSpeed Insights and look at what holds up Largest Contentful Paint. Usually it's a huge hero image, too many apps or scripts, or render-blocking styles. Compress and size images, remove scripts that don't earn their place, and load the main image first.

94. "A competitor outranks us with a worse article. Why?"

Look beyond the text. They may have more and better links, an older and more trusted site, a closer match to the intent, or a faster page. Check the result types Google shows too. If it shows videos or forum threads, a long article may not be what searchers want.

95. "How would you plan SEO for a new D2C brand?"

Fix the technical basics first, like speed, clean product URLs, a sitemap and structured data. Then target the questions buyers ask before buying, like ingredients, comparisons and how-to guides, plus strong category pages. Build links through PR, collaborations and useful tools, and set expectations at 6 to 12 months for real traffic.

96. "The founder wants to rank first for a big keyword next month. What do you say?"

Say what's realistic and offer a plan. Show who ranks now and why, usually older sites with many links. Propose winning the specific searches around it first, where the page can rank in weeks, while links build for the big term. Then report progress on those, so the founder sees movement.

97. "Someone built hundreds of spammy links to our site. Should we disavow them?"

Usually not. Google says it ignores most spammy links on its own, and the disavow tool is mainly for sites with a manual action for unnatural links, or a clear history of bought links. Check Search Console's Manual actions report first.

98. "Your audit found 50 issues. Where do you start?"

Rank them by impact and effort. Anything stopping important pages from being indexed comes first, like noindex mistakes, blocked pages and broken redirects. Then issues on the pages that bring money, then site-wide improvements. Most audit warnings don't move rankings, so don't fix them in list order.

99. "The content team wants to publish 50 AI articles a week. Good idea?"

Not as described. Publishing unedited pages at scale to rank is what Google's scaled content abuse policy targets, and it can pull the whole site down. Fewer, checked pages with real expertise, data and a reason to exist will do better. AI can speed up research and drafts if a person checks and adds to every one.

100. "How would you rank a new page for 'SEO interview questions' against sites like Simplilearn?"

Not by length alone. Win the specific searches first, like freshers, 2 years of experience and assignments, with headings that match them. Make the page the best answer, with correct facts where others are wrong, real examples and a self-test that keeps people on the page. Aim to be cited in the AI Overview, earn links by sharing something useful, link it into a cluster of related pages, and update it after every core update. That's the plan for this page.

Back to all five sections

10 SEO answers other guides still get wrong

Interviewers use these to check whether a candidate's knowledge is current. Each was on at least one page ranking for "SEO interview questions" in October 2026.

What many guides say	What's true in 2026	Question
First Input Delay is a Core Web Vital	Interaction to Next Paint replaced it in March 2024	46
Keep keyword density at 1 to 2%	Google has no density target	24
Use LSI keywords	Google doesn't use latent semantic indexing. Cover the topic properly instead	34
Nofollow links pass nothing	Nofollow is a hint, not a block, since 2019	12
Robots.txt keeps a page out of Google	It controls crawling. Use noindex to stay out of results	41
A 302 passes no ranking value	Google handles both, and long-lived 302s act like 301s	45
Social likes and shares are a ranking factor	Google has said they aren't a direct factor	11
Domain Authority is a Google metric	It's a Moz score that Google doesn't use	14
Add FAQ schema to get FAQ results	Since 2023, FAQ results show only for well-known government and health sites	50
Set sitemap priority to rank key pages	Google ignores priority and changefreq	43

Sources: Google's posts on INP becoming a Core Web Vital, nofollow as a hint, changes to HowTo and FAQ rich results and building sitemaps.

Take-home SEO assignment: a sample with a marking guide

Many companies send an assignment after the first round. Here's a typical one, with how I'd mark it.

The brief. "Here's a product page from a D2C skincare brand and its last three months of Search Console data. Organic clicks to it fell 40%. In two pages, tell us what you think happened, what you'd check, and the first five things you'd change, in order."

What a strong answer does	Marks
Separates a drop in impressions from a drop in CTR before guessing	20
Checks the obvious first, like noindex, canonical, redirects and the Google Search Status Dashboard	20
Compares the page with what now ranks above it, and says what it lacks	20
Ranks the fixes by likely impact, not in audit order	20
Writes plainly, with a number or a screenshot behind each claim	20

What loses marks. A generic checklist that could apply to any site, "build backlinks" as the first answer, and fixes with no reason given.

FAQ

How should I prepare for an SEO interview? Set up Google Search Console and Google Analytics on a small site or blog of your own, fix something real, and be ready to explain it with numbers. Learn the current basics, such as Core Web Vitals, indexing statuses and AI Overviews, and practise one audit out loud.

What SEO questions are asked of freshers? What SEO is, how search engines crawl and index pages, on-page versus off-page SEO, keywords and search intent, backlinks, title tags, robots.txt and sitemaps, and which tools you have used.

What is asked in an SEO interview for 2 to 3 years of experience? Mostly scenarios. Why traffic dropped, how to protect rankings in a redesign, how to fix pages that aren't indexed, how to handle cannibalisation, and how to show the return on SEO, plus a take-home audit.

Which tools should I learn for an SEO job? Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and Google Keyword Planner first, since they are free and used everywhere. Then a crawler such as Screaming Frog and a backlink tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush.

Is there an SEO assignment in interviews? Often, yes. A common one is a short audit of a page or site with its Search Console data, asking what went wrong and what you would fix first, in order.

Do I need an SEO certification? No. A certificate can help a fresher show basic knowledge, but a small site you have grown or fixed, with screenshots and numbers, carries far more weight with interviewers.

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