Hi everyone!

How about becoming part of a big SEO deal? We’re talking about a contest running from September, 16th to September 28th. It's an all-win game you simply must take part. You've got huge chances to grab one of the ten prizes we have. And besides, if you put in your two cents, be sure we'll mention you on our website - and send you some traffic in due time (a small bnus one shouldn't refuse, right ). So that's the first rule of the contest: everyone is a winner!

Now here's the core point. We're making a totally new up-to-date SEO quiz that will let anyone check their optimization skills. The quiz will have questions for different levels. A Mary who's a full-time optimization expert of 5+ years and a Joe who's got a one-hour-on-Saturday-morning SEO hobby will both have chances to score some points.

Besides, this quiz will contain some questions suggested by our users.

And the competition is for the Best SEO Quiz Question. You send us your questions - and we decide what's best and who gets the prize. Ah, we didn't tell you what prizes you'll get? Attention! Each of the ten winners is getting a $50-dollar coupon for any of the SEO products you choose.*

Join the race, send us the Best SEO Question, and the fifty-dollar coupon is yours!

One tiny thing to make clear: the Best Question isn't necessarily the hardest one. The Best Question is non-trite, clear and even if hard to answer, should have some educational value.

It's easy to make your Best SEO Question! You can write a quiz question on the spot, from what you already know. Or dig the web for SEO, website optimization and promotion, search engine rankings, website traffic, and for sure you'll come across a handful of tricky things that are good to ask - you've got time till September, 28th.

How exactly does the contest work? Pretty easy: you fill out the Best SEO Question form until the deadline of September, 26. What do you include?
1) question
2) answering options
3) explanation
4) probably the source where you found the SEO facts you're taking about
5) your name and website, and your company name (if you wish that to be mentioned on our website, of course)
6) your email, so that we can contact you in the case you win

Then the big day will be Monday, September 29th. Our board of qualified SEOs, headed by our chief consultant Dan Richmond will hold a grand meeting , take a final look at all nominees and announce results here in this forum.

Now let's shake on it. You send in your SEO questions (don't forget about the answers) - and we give you the rewards.

Just a couple of hints that give you more chances to win:

- Make your question non-ambiguous. It must be a clear question and have one concrete answer.
- Your quiz task should be tricky enough. Not just "What's a website?" Try to make the user think before hitting a quiz option.
- The question must be answerable. Give a user a chance. We don't ask million-dollar questions, deal?

Want an example? Here's just roughly what we'd expect to see:

Question: What does a robots.txt file do?
Answering options:
1) Allows Search Engines' robots going to pages hidden from users.
2) Prevents robots from going to pages that you don't want to be seen by search engines.
3) Makes an easy path to all pages you have on the website.
Correct answer: Prevents robots from going to pages that you don't want to be seen by search engines.
Explanation: Robots.txt files are widely used by websites when there are pages that should not be found when people simply search in Google or other search engines. For example some robots.txt files may prevent search engine's crawlers from going to shopping carts or pages with users personal info.
Source: (optional)
(This question is from Dan Richmond's SEO in Practice book.)

And don't forget, besides giving prizes to the 10 winners, we'll be pleased to mention on our website everyone who helps with the quiz, therefore take a second to let us know your name, company and site URL.

Looking forward to getting your feedback. We're ready to get bombarded with your ideas!

Take Part In The Contest - Go To Best SEO Question Form

* Coupons do not sum up with other special offers and/or discounts that we might provide in the meantime.

@ LinkAssistant - an SEO quiz to let people check their optimisation skills is a great idea, i've sent you my question idea.

Is it ok to send in more than one question?

Search Engine Optimisation Chester

Thanx!
We've got quite a lot of questions already Too early to judge though.

And yes, sure you can send in more than one question!

Hi Link Assistant,

Your example question was good (as clearly explains the concept) - but I just wanted to raise one small point, if I may...

In regards to the robots.txt file example question... although officially in theory the correct answer to "What does a robot.txt file do?" is "Prevents robots from going to pages that you don't want to be seen by search engines." - there is one big flaw in this correct answer (as in reality it does not "Prevent" robots from going to pages that you do not want to be seen by search engines).

The reality is that many robots / crawlers (including Big G via other UA's and IP addresses) are known to actually ignore the robots.txt file altogether and thereby scan a site without referencing it (or excluding the pages which are listed in the robots.txt file).
In fact Big G is suspected to be comparing the results of a site indexed using the robots.txt file, to indexing not using it to check for blackhat techniques on one's website.
So the real correct answer would be "To notify robots and crawlers, which pages should be ignored during their crawling and indexing of pages on your website" (as robots.txt does not "Prevent" or stop them from crawling those pages).

The correct solution as I understand, is to block sections of your site using ".htaccess" and making sure pages you do not want indexed use clear meta tags i.e. no follow, no index, no archive.
Additionally taking steps to track and UA and/or IP block robots which are known to be breaking the rules and ignoring robots.txt or otherwise using your site content for purposes which are not advantageous.

Please do make sure that the questions in reality offer one 100% correct answer (rather than just officially in theory correct answers, which can be misleading).
Just a small note so that the quiz can be more accurate and useful in the learning process.

Thanks and cheers - Asiaplay

@ LinkAssistant - thank you for your replies.

@ Asiaplay - you raise an interesting point and explain it well. I was thinking along those lines when I first read the example, but I didnt want to mention to the big LA without being 100% on how to say it.

Search Engine Optimisation Chester

Asiaplay, our experience shows that the correct answer is correct indeed, but we'd be insterested and thankful to see the proof of your point if you could provide it.

An interesting quote from a comprehensive article Robots.txt Tutorial by SEOBOOK:


Search Engine Optimisation Chester

No need - I have already said more than I should have said - the point was to illustrate that please be careful in the "correct" answer that you choose - more is not needed to explain this point... cheers, Asiaplay

Hi there,

Today's September 29th, which means the prizes for the Best SEO Question contest are finding their winners.

So now we announce the winners and let you know what they asked. But don't expect us to give any comments or publish the right answers to questions. Sure they can't be disclosed before the quiz is ready.

Here're the guys with top 10 questions:

1. Martin (1 Website Designer)

Question: Which of the following would increase your PageRank the most and help your site appear higher in the search results on Google? Assume all pages contain equally relevant content.

Option 1: 20 links from PageRank 1 directories

Option 2: 1 link from a PageRank 6 web page

Option 3: 2 links from PageRank 3 web pages

2. Nick Lauro (ADC Drums)

Question: Why are 'query string' URL's less favorable than 'SEO friendly' URL's?

Option 1: Query strings are too hard for search engines to understand

Option 2: Most search engines will not index a page containing 'special characters' within its URL

Option 3: URL's containing query strings will not pass WC3 validation rules

3. Mihael Colyott (Electronic Security Industry Support Services)

Question: If I did all the right things and moved my website into the first position on a popular search word, how long can I expect it to stay in that position?

Option 1: For at least 30 days

Option 2: For at least 6 months

Option 3: Until a Spider from that Search Engine crawls a different site that better meets the criteria of that Search Engine.

4. Dennis Dashwood (Niagara Rents)

Question: Should you optimize for the plural or singular form of keyword phrases?

Option 1: Plural only

Option 2: Single only

Option 3: Both

5. John Massey (J. M. Massey & Company)

Question: How can I use Flash on my website and feel confident that the page content will be indexed by search engines?

Option 1: Create and submit a detailed Site Map to search engines.

Option 2: Use a robot.txt file on the page that is configured to "follow";

Option 3: Create an HTML copy of the Flash page and include a robots.txt file on the Flash page that is configured to "no-follow";

6. Morris Leopold (http://seokosher.ca)

Question: What is considered the most important final procedure in finishing any website optimization?

Option 1: Offline promotion including inbound link development and exchanges with relevant websites.

Option 2: Submitting the website to as many FFA (Free for All) directories as possible.

Option 3: Effective SEO requires ongoing optimization to maintain search ranking.


7. Shari Mathias (eBags)

Question: Which of the following are commonly considered black hat SEO practices?

Option 1: Hidden text and links

Option 2: Cloaking

Option 3: All of the above


8. Stuart (SEO Chester)

Question: Is there such a thing as a "duplicate content penalty" from Google?

Option 1: Yes, your website will be banned from Google.

Option 2: Possibly, because i've seen it mentioned lots of times.

Option 3: No, there's no such thing as a "duplicate content penalty" from Google.

9. Michael Guy (1 SEO Experts)

Question: What is a bounce ratio attack team?

Option 1: A clown with a ball and friends

Option 2: A new kind of tennis game

Option 3: Competitors clicking on your website to lower its rankings

10. Tyler Ellison (SP Marketing LLC)

Question: Which of the following search engines does NOT block automated queries using the "inurl:" search string?

Option 1: Live

Option 2: AOL

Option 3: Google



Every person on this list is getting a fifty-dollar coupon (we're emailing each one personally). *


Hope those who looked up the list but didn't come across their names don't get disappointed. We've already started working at the contest, and as promised, when the quiz goes online we're including a short mention of everyone who helped.

Huge thanks to everyone who partook and sent us their SEO puzzles. And congratulations to the winners!


* An important note to all winners: if for some reason you didn't get our email with your coupon, please check your Junk/Bulk email folder, as our messages often get sorted out by spam filters. And if you still can't find your prize, please write to us through support system.