SEO Technical SEO & Site Architecture 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary benefit of implementing HTTPS over HTTP for SEO?
- It increases keyword density
- It is a confirmed Google ranking signal and protects user data (Correct answer)
- It removes the need for a sitemap
- It automatically generates structured data
Correct answer: It is a confirmed Google ranking signal and protects user data
Google confirmed HTTPS as a ranking signal in 2014, and secure connections protect user privacy, building trust with both users and search engines.
Question 2: Which Core Web Vital metric measures the time it takes for a page's main content to become fully interactive?
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) (Correct answer)
- First Contentful Paint (FCP)
Correct answer: Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures responsiveness by assessing the delay between user interactions and the next visual update.
Question 3: What does a hreflang attribute help search engines understand?
- The page's loading speed for mobile devices
- The target language and geographic region of a page (Correct answer)
- Whether a page should be indexed or noindexed
- The primary keyword for a given page
Correct answer: The target language and geographic region of a page
Hreflang tells search engines which language and region a page targets, helping serve the correct version to international users.
Question 4: Which of the following is the most effective way to handle a large number of thin, low-quality pages on a website?
- Add more keywords to the pages
- Consolidate, improve, or use noindex to remove them (Correct answer)
- Build more backlinks to those pages
- Add canonical tags pointing to themselves
Correct answer: Consolidate, improve, or use noindex to remove them
Consolidating or noindexing thin pages reduces crawl waste, improves overall site quality signals, and focuses index equity on valuable content.
Question 5: What is the purpose of the 'noindex' meta robots tag?
- Prevent crawlers from following links on a page
- Instruct search engines not to include a page in search results (Correct answer)
- Block all bots from accessing a page
- Tell crawlers to revisit a page more frequently
Correct answer: Instruct search engines not to include a page in search results
The noindex directive tells search engines to exclude a page from their index, meaning it will not appear in search results.
Question 6: Which type of redirect passes the most link equity (PageRank) to the destination URL?
- 302 redirect
- Meta refresh
- 301 redirect (Correct answer)
- JavaScript redirect
Correct answer: 301 redirect
A 301 permanent redirect passes nearly full link equity to the destination, whereas temporary redirects and JavaScript redirects may pass less or no equity.
Question 7: What is 'faceted navigation' and why can it cause SEO problems?
- A mobile menu that blocks crawlers from navigating the site
- URL variations created by filtering options that generate near-duplicate pages (Correct answer)
- A sitemap format that excludes dynamic pages
- A redirect type used for e-commerce category pages
Correct answer: URL variations created by filtering options that generate near-duplicate pages
Faceted navigation (e.g., filters for color, size, price) creates many URL combinations with duplicate or thin content, wasting crawl budget and diluting link equity.
SEO Technical SEO & Site Architecture 2
What is the primary benefit of implementing HTTPS over HTTP for SEO?