You are master of the keyword.
You create 1,000 links with a single tweet. You rank for the word "rank." Google engineers ask for your approval before updating their algorithm.
You, my friend, are an SEO expert.
Ready for fun? Here at Moz we gathered our wits (it didn't take very long) and created a new quiz to test our SEO knowledge.
Based on a quiz that our co-founder Rand first published back in 2005, at the dawn of electronics and lighter-than-air travel, we now present to you the new and improved SEO Expert Quiz.
The quiz contains 50 questions and takes about 15 minutes to complete. The questions are randomized so no two people will get the exact same quiz with the same order of questions.
Here's what to expect.
1. The quiz is hard!
Like, astronaut training hard. Very few people score 100%. The breakdown of performance looks like this:
- 0-40% SEO Newbie: You rank on page 7, but are aiming to move up.
- 41-60% SEO Novice: Young, but strong in the ways of the Force, you are.
- 61-75% SEO Pro: The traffic is pouring in!
- 76-90% SEO Expert and Formula One race car driver
- 91-100% Lord of the Internet, Master of the SEO Realm
2. For fun only!
The Expert Quiz isn't meant to be a rulebook of the Internet. You may even disagree with some of the answers—and you may be right!
We work in a constantly evolving field with lots of room for interpretation at the top levels. Discussion and debate between very smart people is how we learn and grow our expertise.
The only reward for finishing in first place is supreme bragging rights. If you win your office pool, you may get free lunch for the next month. Please participate and help our knowledge grow, but don't take it too seriously.
3. MVP: next steps
We built this out of passion for testing our SEO knowledge. If you like the quiz, we'd love to build a more robust version that saves your score, and even gives you a badge to display on your user profile. Let us know what you think.
Ready to get started?
Don't forget to show off your score when you finish. Let us know in the comments below! What surprised you, which question did you totally ace, and what should we ask next time?
Rock on, SEO Sensei.
Big thanks to Devin, Derric, Josh, Carin, Shelly and Rand for the hard work putting this together.
Guys, don't do tricks like Googling the questions before answering :D
Not used Google, scored only 42% :(. I think you should mention this guidelines as term & condition before start of quiz.
i scored 62% :(.. But still i think i was right in some answers.. Because the questions were not clear.
Just to be TAGFEE, there should be on all questions a "I don't know" answer :).
I left them blanked. :D
The quiz is hard! I took it 4 different times before scoring 100%
Because you are paper setter :) :) Just Kidding, I know you are genius.
When do we get to find out Rand's score? ;)
Apparently we don't Haa! =)
got 96%... nice quiz.. thanks Cyrus Shepard :)
Harsh Darji. i'm sure you have taken it before
Well, i think if you do not know answer of any question, Google it. Read it, read one more article on it. Then come back and attempt the quiz and get 100%. At least it will help you learn.
Perfection is not an instant event but a goal we must strive for throughout our lives.
And, I love this line, Google engineers ask for your approval before updating their algorithm.
Scored a 68%! Nice quiz... definitely learned some things! :)
scored that too. I was hoping for better.
84% on 1st (and only) attempt. Didn't do a 2nd attempt because that's pointless.
I'm not sure why so many people are talking about their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th attempts. Of course you can get a 100% after the quiz tells you exactly what you got wrong and what the correct answer is :)
True. I scored 60% and was kind of disappointed frankly, but a second attempt wouldn't be real.
Couldn't agree with you more. The whole point was to test your knowledge and see what areas you can still learn.
I scored a 82% and feeling excited! :)
Honesty bids me to admit I got 80% on my first attempt (and disagreed with a few of the ones I got wrong). Attempt number 2 yielded the desired 100%.
I have to say, it's a good quiz. Some easy ones, some hard ones, and a few that only advanced SEOs would have a hope of getting right. Well done.
Even when it's our own quiz, I always expect to go through it cringing, thinking "Oh, man, that's kind of subjective" or "Well, that's a matter of opinion", but I think I only did that for 1 out of 50, and even then I wasn't foaming at the mouth about it :)
This was one of best SEO quiz i've seen ever. Thank you Cyrus and MOZ team for that!
Thanks Peter! We had a lot of fun making it.
You're right this one is hard. On 3rd attempt i got 98%.
One suggestion - i will be happy if quiz will start randomizing answers too. This will be ultimate change against cheating.
I scored 39%,
Why would anyone "thumbs down" this?
Hey "Kemp" you are right, i also don't understand this 'thumbs down'
58%
The score brackets are not proper
Should have been
btw I really do not feel that these questions could judge anyone's ability to rank a website.
Anyway it was fun and my 30 minutes of mind numbing work has passed in a jiffy :)
Thanks!!
Mmm... what about these?
Lords of Forgotten SEO Realms?
We had 50 questions... It's not possible to have those numbers :)
Ah! I was just pointing out the fact that Anil made ranges like 0-40% and then 42-60% forgetting that there's a 41% between them :)
74% here, glad it shows were you go wrong after the test. Some questions I got wrong, the right answer was my next choice, but some I had no clue or I was completely wrong and learnt something new (eg If a page includes more than one rel="canonical", Google will...)
Thanks Cyrus and the moz team
"You may even disagree with some of the answers—and you may be right!"
This happened on a couple of questions.
I also Googled several things just to see if I was completely idiotic. :) I love some of the made-up answers. They actually made me go "is that a real thing?!?!?!"
I agree. I almost marked the ice cream answer correct since I'm hungry :) Great quiz Cyrus!
I got a solid 70% but cant be bothered to take it again... I am just a humble coder, what do I know about SEO!
Pretty cool quiz tho..... a techie "SEO for Coders" quiz would be good.
Apparently, with a 70 you know a lot!
Its a pet issue of mine, I dont understand how anybody can claim to be an SEO without an exceptional grasp of HTML and a reasonable grounding in coding a functional language such as PHP (for scraping, testing analysing, etc..). Without these skills and tools I guess that just makes a person a writer that understands a bit about how content impacts rank.
Best SEO quiz ever! It is a great resource for companies looking to hire SEOs to see if they really know their stuff :-)
Well done, Cyrus! I love it.
74% - great quiz, thanks for putting this up guys
I've wanted a good quiz for ages to test my self and this was great, kinda wish there was a back button as there was a question i knew was wrong just after clicking next. 72% however I was rushing it and did it in a record time of 8 1/2 minutes!
Thanks Moz!
I wonder how many people claiming 90+ percentile cheated and/or lied about their figures?
A few questions are subjective and a bit open ended, but I managed a 66%. A couple of those just aren't daily issues that I've dealt with so I'm a bit unsure of the answers. I wanted to Google, but that would defeat the purpose of the quiz.
68% -- tough quiz!!
SEO Pro with 66%, though I expected around 75-80%. Fun quiz with several tricky questions and fun answers. I liked the soft-404 with the pillow most :)
I like Robert Downey jr basement ;)
I thought to say the same. :) @cyrus who behind for that choice(answer)?
70% :)
thanks, nice quiz!
Can someone give some explanation for this question. I chose C but got it wrong and the quiz review said B was the correct answer. I read the accompanying GWMT documentation that the answer was linked to. My understanding is that a soft error could show a 404 content message, but not an actual 404 HTTP response code. If I'm interpreting that correctly, couldn't B or D be the correct answer then?
What is an example of a "soft" 404 error?
A. A page that returns a 404 HTTP response code, but quickly changes to a 200 a short time later.
B. A page that returns a 200 HTTP response code, and displays a blank page.
C. A page that displays a 404 HTTP response code, and displays a 404 error page.
D. A page that returns a 404 code with pillows.
That's right. Soft "404" is showing "Page not found" with 200 for example.
D - haha. Couldn't be!
C - this is true 404 aka hard 404.
A - this is page 404 that was fixed.
Only that apply to this is B. This is soft 404, just ignore the what is content on that page.
Hi Sharon,
You are correct as well. A true 404 returns a 404 response code, so both examples fit the bill. For the purpose of the question, only option B fit the definition, so it's the best choice.
I Scored 64%... Not that much bad for this time. :P.. Still have large room for improvements.
A great Thanks to Cyrus for this amazing quiz...
58% as a Digital Marketer / E-Commerce guy. Not satisfied yet but for sure helps to evaluate and challenge an SEO.
Great test with some tough questions on topics I had never even thought of before. Got a 77%, which seems about right.
Thanks, it was a fun way to burn time on hump-day.
94% at the first attempt, 100% at the second attempt (without checking answers) :)
80%
Would love to know what's the average score and bar graph of respective buckets...#LoveData :P
We may be able to make that happen! Good suggestion.
Waiting :P
The average score, as of now, is just barely over 60%. I'll post another comment here with a full chart soon! =)
Hey @Cyrus I scored 50% only. Will you give me your views for my score ?
50% is really awesome. Stay in school, study hard. And maybe get rich.
Thank you so much @Cyrus for your motivation. Thanks a lot.
76% - surprisingly weak on sitemaps! Strong like bull on canonicals though :-)
50% so plenty more practice for me thanks for quiz
I took the test once, and I got an 88%. Am I supposed to receive a Formula One race car? - Thanks for putting together the quiz, moz team. Had fun, and definitely learned something from a few of my wrong answers.
56%! Since this has a lot of technical SEO questions, I am delighted that I scored over 50% as an SEO content specialist (SEO copywriter). Plus, the language barrier also makes it a little harder.
And of course, I learned a lot, so thanks! :-)
70% - not happy about it but I guess it could be worse. Great quiz though and it made me more mindful that I need to keep learning. Thank you for showing the answers at the end and including links to learn more about the subject matter. This is what it is all about - continuing to improve.
I scored 52%, not bad for newbie like me, eh? Without Google of course. Next, aiming for 80%!
92% still room for improvement. Doing the test with my 3,5 year old next to me did not help :-). Nice test indeed!
The question about a trailing slash creating duplicate content and if it should be fixed because it creates duplicate content may have the wrong correct answer. The supporting link supplied to learn about the correct answer is from a Google Webmaster Central Blog post from 2010 that states that the trailing slash version can create duplicate content. But, Matt Cutts released a video in 2011 stating that in the vast majority of cases, Google automatically canonicalizes the versions with and without the trailing slash. So, like many answers, it's definitely open to interpretation that you "should" fix it.
Excellent points John. This question was the biggest conversation starter when we tested the quiz with a group of international experts. The consensus from that group - who work with some of the largest publishers in the world - was that in cases when link equity flowed to both versions (links to the trailing / version and the non-trailing slash) Google often didn't canonicalize and link equity could be split/lost among duplicate URLs.
In the original version of the quiz we actually had the correct answer set to the opposite of "leave it alone" but caught hellfire from the group. :)
So yeah, it's one of those somewhat open to interpretation, so in the end we went with the answer that was most "technically" fool-proof correct.
Only last year I saw Google indexing both a trailing slash and a non-trailing slash version of a page, so it can still get it wrong.
Congrats Cyrus..!!! you are person who got max numbers of comments on the post in last 6 Months.. i'm going to follow you on twitter.. :)
Got a 88% on 1st try. But I disagree with some of answers here. Good quiz though :)
Come on guys, this is basic SEO 101. You should know this stuff.
My score https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxz3ed2hgflOQ0I4...
TIP: Hitting back to change your answer will not save the new choice. Once you've chosen your answer, that's it.
TIP was awesome, I impressed many people through it, :p, Moz needs to take care of this silly things in this kind of quiz.
I got a 62% which is not nearly as bad as I thought I would get. I do have a suggestion for the test, though. Granted, it might be more trouble than it's worth, however, I would weight the questions. Some of the questions were beyond easy. Not even SEO easy, like "have you ever used Google before easy." Whereas others, were like "wow, you really know you're stuff" if you got them right...I did not get any of those right. So, I wouldn't allow the same amount of points for both.
Hey Cyrus no doubt you did a great experiment.. but how the result % was fixed.? and how can you give the same rank as newbie to both who scored 0 and who scored 40
well i scored 50% ;)
Great Quiz. I scored a 62%. You guys did a great job. As others mentioned, some were easy and some were more difficult. But, overall well done! I learned some new things today. Thanks.
I got 64%. It was fun and made me question a couple of things that I thought I knew, but really didn't. Now I have a few things I should brush up on. Thanks!
74% fairly happy with that. Would have been a bit higher but i didn't notice a / in a url and just thought it was a trick question!
Really don't understand how i didn't know that alt = anchor text...... The rest of them i just haven't needed to know yet, things like how big a sitemap.xml is allowed to be etc.
I scored just 86%, need to learn more. Thanks Cyrus for the effort. I think it's better to make Quiz Time Limits. :)
Disappointed with my 48% score, proves that I need to learn a lot more! :-)
Hang in there! 48% is pretty darn respectful for this quiz.
I scored 94% on the SEO Expert Quiz. See if you can beat me! https://moz.com/seo-expert-quiz via @Moz pic.twitter.com/z4qU8GpzHa
Congrates Ketan. Feeling Jealous!!
@Gaurav Kumar Thank you so much...
63% No cheating :)
Well done
62%--looks like there is a lot more to learn. Interesting quiz though!
I could use this quiz to filter out the most promising applicants, even before the interview takes place. Let's say that three of the applicants take the test: 20%, 25% and 45%: that does say something, right?
got 52%. has less than a year experience. :D
42%, No cheating :(
Just scored 48%, need to learn more technical SEO, thanks Cyrus.
It would be cool if at the end of the quiz it gave you some more insight into your SEO strengths and weaknesses / areas for improvement.
For example, I know from taking the quiz that I need to brush up on rel="canonical" and HTTP status codes.
If you get more than 50 questions, change /question in the url to /done to get your score =) 82% here, no cheating =) (AW)
Did this happen to you? We're trying to figure out what's causing it. Thanks for helping spread word about the fix!
OMG!! I scored 92%.. But I'd say it's a great learning experience. It would be more better if the questions were asked by section wise like Hubspot's people does.
But all in all, a great experience. :)
Question 21 could be a bit misleading. You don't specify what type of sitemap - you could have a sitemap for users that could be in .php.
Fair point!
Scored 80%, but wondering how some questions that may sound simple becomes difficult when you are appearing in a test.
82% first try
Thanks @Cyrus!! I like it !! Have Great Experience & Good For SEO Knowledge.
60% i thought i'd do worse ;)
Having a 4+ experience, Got 46%
Auh 60% but actually I'm fine with that as those I failed on I predominantly dithered/swayed between 2 choice options for the right and wrong answer i.e. choose between A or C mmmm it's A no its C oh crap it was A after all.
Good fun and especially like the section at the end showing you the answers and the option to learn more.
Passing to internal staff now - no doubt to be humiliated!
David
Very Cool. I had to think pretty hard on a couple of questions and I learned from others! Thank you!
Loving this quiz. Even though its for fun, it does put you on the spot :D
I scored 96% see here my screenshot https://t.co/rlY8YUK1MT
This quiz, like SEO, is super easy! I scored 125%. My quiz results page is now the number 1 Google search result for 90% of all queries worldwide!
I got 70%, Its really great. Thanks Cyrus.
would be interesting to know how u scored odd percentage? 35.5 answer correct lol
35/50 is the same as 70/100.
He edited it. It was 71 :)
I scored 85%,
Is 85% even possible? :P
Well, I scored 80%. I was sure I'd done better, but there were a few tricky ones that caught me. Awesome test guys, thank you.
Definitely build a test that displays the results on our profiles Cyrus... ;-)
66% - That was a tough quiz. It gave me some good topics to study these next couple of weeks though!
Also, I noticed myself marking some questions with one answer & clicking the "Next" button to move on to the next question but immediately realizing I had made a mistake. I wish there was a "Back" button to go to the previous question. That would have saved me a few times. Still a great quiz though!
Got 82% but Some answers are too Silly. Like robots tag related question has not right answer.
I choose to block a URL : Disallow: /pageurl.html but it shows that both are correct like: Disavow :/ and my answer. ... How
Got 56% but still thinking that there are some question which are confusing and circling around the original answer..
Yet a nice quiz after a long time, Thanks - Cyrus Shepard..
Enjoyed it
Have glanced at it and anybody that got better then 85 has done very well. Don't think I'd been able to get that kind of score just yet.
Cheers
Attempted the quiz while watching "Pawn Stars" on TV. Focused for 30 odd seconds for each question and managed to finish the quiz in around an hour and scored 76% in my first attempt & absolutely no cheating. :)
BTW the quiz was as interesting as the episode on TV.
I scored 40% not good but learned new things.
The 90210 redirect was my favourite! got 100% on my second attempt, kept missing out the "Both X and X are correct". Note to self, read ALL the answers!
great Quiz
Good quiz on SEO! Got a revision of what I know.
36% here.
Ahem, I'm going back to see if any new sites are linking to me yet. Shouldn't take long.
54%, still, motivates me to learn more about SEO, that is why I like it, not because you can learn the answers, but because this way you can find ranking factors you did not know about.
I got 48% but I'm still glad. I need to learn more. I should make it a habit to read moz articles everyday. :)
I scored a 70% You know those High End Pro Stats - From a UX perspective....I would have liked to see the "share" say: By the standards of this test you are considered a Pro, as 70% to the general masses seems like I barely know what I'm doing lol - The MVP level would be nice! Thx Guys!
I scored 92%...
With googling 62% is a bad score:)
I'm so glad this quiz corrects the botched questions at the end!
62. Not bad but not so good too...:)
Noob's score is 52%. On "Which HTTP status code is best to serve when your site is down for maintence?" there's a "90210" option! Hilarious!
I got 95 % thank you MOZ !!
Tough quizz : 68% with lucky guesses
96% but was unable to share on FB & linkedin
"90210" was just so perfect! Thanks!
Looking forward in a more on-page related quiz!
~60% as a SEO-Beginner. I'm kind of proud of myself. 3 weeks ago I didn't even know what SEO is. But I must really point out that moz.com is a very helpful site for coming into that topic.
THANK YOU MOZ FOR BEING THERE <3
I learned really much here, and I suggested this site to my co-worker who started as a SEO at the same time. We both really appreciate you all, here are mainly competent people and I really enjoy watching through all the blogposts here.
Also whiteboard-friday is a really nice youtube-series and I am looking forward to seing more episodes soon. :-)
92 1st attempt ... 94 2nd attempt ... not to shabby
Nice quiz. Just got 68% :)
Even I though I had knew some answers right, the options confused me and made me choose the wrong one. :-p
Scored a 68%.
It was interesting to see my strengths and weaknesses. Looks like I've got some work to do!
76% !! Boom!
Tough quiz though, my brain is fried now :)
44% for this rookie.. long way to go :P
Impressed myself with a 76% on the first go around! Must...get...100%.....
Nice quiz Moz!!
Decent quiz - When you started off saying the quiz was hard, I was prepared for more.
Too many questions on canonical tags - could have added a bit more variety I think,
1st attempt : 70% , completed in 15 mins
2nd attempt :88%. , took around 12 mins.
3rd attempt : 100% , took around 6-8 mins ;almost memorised the Qs and Options. Answered even without reading Q's & options.
Without Googling Just got 61% score. Not bad :)
This is a great quiz, although I notice the question about mobile vs desktop queries is now out of date! Really useful to help understand where new/prospective staff members are at, thank you.
I scored 86%, Some questions are very tricky. Even I have never faced such type of questions while interview.
Thanks! And waiting for New Quiz.
I got 84% but face palmed when I saw the answers I got wrong.. I should have taken a bit more time...
Cyrus, you might want to change the Authorship question. The "correct" answer of "May lead to enhanced CTR through authorship photos in search results" is actually false now that Google is dropping authorship photos from SERPs.
72% - Not quite the Top of the Class but pretty good nonetheless, a couple glaringly wrong, perhaps I should have had another coffee ;) #seoquiz
I got just 36% :( I need to work hard, keep searching until i get 100% marks. Anyway have great time with this quiz :) And I learned a lot of things here! Thanks Cyrus Shepard
I'm so happy this quiz corrects the botched questions at the end! This was my first time taking it and I got a 70%. I've been doing seo for about a year now and I'm excited to study up on everything I missed and come back again for a re-test in a few months!
I've got 62%. Sounds about right :)
The test is easier than I expected.
One more question which i have doubt robots.txt. You are dealing with page but applying robots for whole site. It is also really very confusing.
94% , will this score be added on Moz profile?
I scored 56%! - Applied Perfection
Got 64%, could have scored higher. Gave wrong answers of some really simple questions due to time limit of 15 minutes. I thought the quiz would be closed after the given time. Anyway, Thanks for providing an opportunity to test my SEO skills, It certainly enhanced my SEO knowledge.
Nice quiz Cyrus!
I got 66% which I was reasonably happy with considering I haven't been actively involved in SEO for a year or so. Was well worth taking, a nice little refresher and now I know what I need to improve my knowledge on!
This is a nice platform to let the SEOs to map their knowledge.
72% Correct! First go, no cheating I promise! Great test, it did highlight stuff to me that I know we are not implementing, so it served as a reminder to do what you know is good - and highlighted some stuff that I didn't know about, that we must get done!
Yay! Got 72% first time round! But it highlighted some things I didn't know... and reminded me of stuff I know that we are not doing.. Thanks!
Thanks @Cyrus
Learnt alot. Awesome website and an awesome quizz. Only started learning about SEO and online marketing, been about a month now. Knowledge is purely from reading Moz articles, youtube and thirddoormedia.com.
Got a 54% on the test.. Didn't know the answers to the questions so took the best educated guess. Fairly tricky and great tool to help you find your weaknesses.
Thanks again and looking forward to more quizzes and similar posts.
Hello Cyrus Shepard
The Answer provided here is controversial and i think that it is not appropriate answer. The question is:
Implementing structured data may help:
A: Lead to rich snippets in search results
B: Enchance CTR from search engine results
C: Search engines understand your content
D: Your content to appear in specialized search results like "in-depth Articles"
E: All of these
The correct answer as per you is E. However i think it is wrong. We can't implement in-depth article through structured data. To implement it we have to add following things like:
<h1 itemprop="name headline "> Headline goes here....</h1>
for image we can use
<itemprop="image" itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject"> <img src="" width="" height="" alt="" itemprop="contentUrl representativeOfPage" />
Now doubt it comes under schema.org markup guidelines but if you implement this markup with poor content quality then it will never be beneficial. High quality content for in depth information is prime requirement. In contrary of it, we just have to follow markup guidelines for Microformat, hreview to get displayed in search results.
As per my opinion, A,B and C will be the answer but D can't be included in it.
Simple yet effective quiz..I find some of the questions confusing!
When I try taking the quiz, it keeps resetting and I have to start all over. Got to question 25 and just gave up after it reset again. Oh well...
Thanks for letting us know Mitch. Our Devs deployed some fixes. If you see any problems, give us a shout!
Kind of strange, some of the answers I clicked showed up as not clicked, and showed I clicked the wrong answer. For answered I clicked A, it would show I clicked C. Oh well, overall a fun quiz. 90% here, not bad, given the errors. Real guess would be a 95-96%, as about 3 answers displayed things I did not click
That is strange! Would you mind letting us know which browser you're using? We'll look into it. Also: nice work! =)
Got a 52% on my second try. Great quiz and it lets me know I still have a lot to learn!
84%, not too shabby I suppose. Thanks for making this guys! Way easier than Biggest Search Geek ;) ...although that was mostly paid search.
76% cold, no peeking.
Great Quiz and pretty hard too :) I got 74% in my first attempt but going for 2nd attempt now.
I will keep trying until I reach 100% :)
Scored 50%, will try again to improve.... :)
Totally bummed. Got to 50 questions, got an error, only option was to keep clicking "next." Ended up answering 56/50 questions, still won't actually end. I just keep clicking "next" and nothing happens. Sigh. Closing the window is my only option. No score for me….
It's a bug change the url from /question to /done to get your results
I am new to SEO. Can i post my website link to this website.
Welcome to the field! We're pretty careful about making sure links around here are relevant, so it isn't quite that easy. =)
If you're looking to learn more about our style of SEO, though, we'd definitely recommend taking a look through the Beginner's Guide.
Awesome quiz! I suggest doing an annual one to keep up with changes ;). 72% on the first go, and then of course had to take it again just to see the good score. Was unaware that canonical and 301 carry the same weight. Guess I just haven't had a lot of cross-domain canonical experience. This is an awesome way to quickly learn or confirm little SEO facts.
94%, but I disagree with one of the questions...
"You decide to add a blog to your ecommerce site. What is the preferred url structure?"
Personally, I don't want a blog anywhere near my domain. If I absolutely, positively had to add one, it would be on a separate domain, ESPECIALLY if clients have access to posting on it!
Blog SEO Meta & canonicals are a pain in the arse.
On a side note, I prefer the term "Digital Jedi".
Quite a strange reply. Why do you think not having a blog is better than having one?
Its more difficult to actually set up and manage correctly than it is to not have one. That being, opportunity cost. With clients having access and posting, categories, tags, different views of the same content, canonical tags, meta rules... they're a royal pain to manage properly & get a lasting benefit from.
On a sub-domain, you're mitigating any potential damage with the sub-domain, but you're also mitigating any major benefits. On a separate domain, any benefit your receive would be passed on to your main domain through relevant links in the content back to the appropriate page and/or section of the site's domain from the blog. If the blog goes sideways from a technical SEO standpoint, it's not going to tank your primary domain and is easier to move/restructure if necessary without playing major havoc with your primary domain's rankings.
In a folder off of your primary domain, all bets are off. Your blog exists as a potential liability. Set up properly and maintained, policed for comment spam, with the proper technical back-end, go for it. Most people aren't very good at pulling this off, especially when clients are involved and posting themselves.
I'm biased against blogs... I mostly just don't care for them. If there's a good reason for you to put up a blog, go for it. If there's not a good reason to have one, don't.
I got 52%. It was too long. I made mistakes intentionally because I had to go back to work. lol
I completed the test by answering 56/50 Questions !!!
Guys, please fix the error at the earliest!
Do I need to re-take the test?
Hey test is still not completed. But serving the questions was stopped !!!
I still able to see the "Next Question" TAB
In the URL, change /question to /done and that should fix it!
Test Restarted!
Awesome quiz! Thanks for putting this together. Some of the answers had more than one answer. Where were the correct answers pulled from? Group effort?
Thanks, David! Yep, a bunch of us got together to work on the questions and answers. If any stood out to you as having room for improvement, please don't hesitate to get in touch - content (at) moz.com is a good address. =)
and scoring should be in this format
Score 0 if all answers are incorrect
Score 10 if top 5 answers are correct
Score 20 if top 10 answers are correct
Score 30 if top 15 answers are correct
Score 40 if top 20 answers are correct
Score 50 if top 25 answers are correct
Score 60 if top 30 answers are correct
Score 70 if top 35 answers are correct
Score 80 if top 40 answers are correct
Score 90 if top 45 answers are correct
Score 100 if top 50 answers are correct
And question should start from softer to harder instead of Random
i'm not criticizing.. you did a great job but i fee we can do better judgement with above scoring...
I don't get it, why would you only count specific answers in the scoring, and not all?
Facing problem with SEO quiz.!
Here is the attached screenshot : https://oi57.tinypic.com/14xnjip.jpg
Thanks for letting us know! We'll try to get that fixed up ASAP.
Change /question in the url to /done to get your score =) (AW)
Ah heck I am a Novice. I also need to learn more about the technical side of SEO. 54%
You have a little mistake here, I think it should be 60-70%, not 60-75%
Unless you are a PRO and an Expert at the same time. (thanks for heads up!)
My pleasure. Thank you, for the interesting quiz.
Nice One! Thanks! I scored 72% :D made some mistakes for not paying enough attention
Where is Grade table Cyrus?
When you submit your answer for question 50, you should see a page telling you which questions you got right and which you got wrong (along with the correct answers). Hopefully that gives you a sense for things you might not have already known. =)
Is the test working properly? I scored 80% and when I went to check my mistakes, I was positive that I put the correct answer for some of the answers.
Some I definitely got wrong but around 3-4 I am sure I put the correct answer.
70%.. can make above 80% Silly mistake done..not fully concentrated
78% … I'll take it for early on a Wednesday morning!
i haven't received my score, there is some problem on a page Please check this Screenshot https://awesomescreenshot.com/0552voxdf0 :(
It's a small bug we're working on. If you go past 50 questions, change the end of the url from /question to /done to get your score.
Thanks for sharing your guide. I always love getting freebies and this one will definitely help me out with my own blogs.
Great looking blog you have here!! Great stuff as always. Looking forward to giving it a read. I always found here awesome posts and i always enjoyed and gained a lot after reading your posts. I personally love these wonderful suggestions.
I'm sure these will help me to improve my skills and knowledge. I am really happy to go througt these points and i know they will help me in future.
Thanks – and it’s nice to come visit again.
Great Quiz !! Scored 96 %
Thanks Cyrus.
I scored 72%. I laughed at some of the made-up answers like "Under Robert Downey's Basement" or something like that.
It was fun! Although I have to say that I disagree on some answers. I mean, some of it are debatable.
Nevertheless, It's still a good learning experience for someone like me.
Thanks Cyrus and Moz Team!
That was very hard, very informative as well. Thank you.
58% :D Thanks for making this quiz. It's a great way to refresh our SEO knowledge.
Fun quiz. Buzzfeed knew what they were doing :)
As I was taking it I felt as though I was doing so terribly, so I actually felt happy when the results said I got 74%.
Thanks Cyrus Shepard for this great SEO Quiz..
I Got 54%
78%, one and only attempt but doing SEO is much more than knowing the technical stuff. It's all about how you apply the knowledge.
Ouch - only a 76% first try. Time for me to hit the books! I slipped up on too many silly questions that I should've known.
Was happy to get 72% - Thinking back on a couple or questions after the quiz, I simply put the wrong answer after thinking too much from a marketing stand point. I thought I would come out with about 50% haha
Really nice Quiz! My score is 50%... Lot of things to learn more to reach next level - SEO Pro... And I'm more quizzes like this to learn and improve one's knowledge. Thank you!
I highly recommend the test be taken when you are not in a hurry and have had blueberries for breakfast. I still cannot figure out how I marked pixels on the Title Tag question...aaarrrggghhhh. But, it is the best SEO test I have seen to date.Very thorough. Well done.
Something I wish I had added is the links to explain the source or "why" of a correct answer are very well thought out. Another good job by the Moz team.
That was great guys! Definitely was able to learn a few interesting facts. I have to say, most of what I have learned has been on Moz :)
I scored 88% on the SEO Expert Quiz,,,
I don't know about you, but I seriously doubt those 90%+ scores. This is a pretty hard and elaborate test!
I scored a 60% because I got most of the technical questions wrong (those were tough!)
But I love this quiz because it let me go back and look at the ones I got wrong, and guess what? Now I know a little more than I did before the quiz!T
Thanks for this guys!
It would be a good idea to flag any really important SEO ranking factor questions, to people who get these wrong, as some could have disastrous consequences!
This was fun! Got 80% on my attempt.
I'm a little embarrassed I gave the wrong answer to a question about meta descriptions :(... I need to be more focused when taking quizzes.
I Scored 92% and share on twitter https://twitter.com/manojpallai/status/47223716462...
Lot of things have to learned.It looks technical questions eg. on page optimization, would like to suggest could you please add some analytic, web master tools and link building related questions.
Thank you MOZ team for sharing a great thing.
First time Scored 62%, Could be better..
I already invited other marketers too by submitting this quiz on Inbound.org. Here is the link:
https://inbound.org/articles/view/take-the-seo-expe...
I already passed it last year.
Got 62% great learning...thanks to MOZ Team....for sharing this useful post....
I got 93%. https://twitter.com/danilodillo/status/471853619973591041
Thanks
not easy ones, but there are too many questions on "canonical" . It will be better if you guys could combine more practical questions or SEO strategies . By the way, I score 80%, SEO Expert!
ROFL.
Technical SEO is the most practical SEO to know. It is a strategy in itself, but must be used in conjunction with everything else.
Good SEO isn't a series of strategies one can pick and choose from. It's putting the pieces of the puzzle that is your website in the proper place so the robots can crawl and index it efficiently and appropriately. If you just do the on-page, or just do some linking, you're still missing the edges of the puzzle, piece wise. Use all the pieces for the best results.
I got 66% - however, some of them are things you do not really need to remember off the top of your head, on a day to day basis, as you can just look on Google if unsure.
Nonetheless a very well put together set of questions, which can be used to test new potential employees.
The number of questions around "canonical" and "HTTP status codes" makes me think there's a correlation between being a good SEO and mastering those two :)
Got 68% so I still have some learning work to be done. Hopefully MozCon will help! See you there..
I have only ever done SEO "in theory" with no real application. Always thought that maybe I didn't know enough to do it properly but my 58% tells me maybe it's time to stop reading and start doing. 3% off pro surely suggests I have an idea of what I'm talking about and can learn the rest in situ.
82%, Pow
54% - considering that I dived in the SEO an year ago I think is not too bad....plenty of room to improve though
nice
why your comment got more thumb down, cause your comment looks empty and you can say this even without taking a good look at all this!