SEO Interview Questions: 30 Questions, Good Answers and Red Flags (2026)

Quick quiz

Is SEO right for you, and how should you start?

Question 1 of 425%

Do people search Google for what you sell?

Yes, I think soNo, it is new or very nicheI don't know

Most lists of SEO interview questions give you 60 or 100 definitions to memorize. That helps a candidate revise, but it does not help a founder or a marketing lead tell a strong SEO from a confident one. This guide does both: 30 questions grouped by skill, what a good answer contains, the red flags to listen for, and the practical tests that reveal more than any question. Google itself publishes a short list of questions to ask before you hire an SEO, and we build on it. If you are a candidate, read the "good answer" lines as a checklist, then work through our step-by-step path to learn SEO for any gap.

How should you structure an SEO interview?

Match the questions to the level of the role. A junior SEO needs solid fundamentals and curiosity; a manager needs judgment, prioritization and the ability to explain SEO to a board. One round of questions plus one practical exercise is enough for most hires.

Ask every candidate the same core questions so you can compare answers. Score each answer from 1 to 3 (vague, correct, correct with a real example) and write the score down right after the interview.

Foundational SEO interview questions

These questions check that the candidate understands how search works. Each one comes with what a good answer contains. Our guide to SEO basics covers the theory behind them.

1. How does Google decide which pages to show for a search?

Good answer: three stages, crawling (Googlebot discovers URLs through links and sitemaps), indexing (Google analyzes and stores the page) and ranking (hundreds of signals decide the order for each query). A strong candidate adds that a page can be crawled and still not indexed.

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

Good answer: on-page covers content, titles and internal links; off-page covers backlinks and brand mentions; technical SEO covers crawlability, indexing, speed, structured data and site architecture.

3. What is search intent and why does it matter?

Good answer: the goal behind a query (information, comparison, purchase, a specific site). The candidate should explain that the format of the top results shows the intent, and that a page with the wrong format rarely ranks, however well written.

4. Which SEO tools do you use, and for what?

Good answer: Google Search Console first (real clicks, impressions, indexing), then GA4, a crawler such as Screaming Frog and a keyword tool such as Semrush or Ahrefs. Listen for a reason behind each tool, not a list of logos.

5. How do you stay up to date with SEO?

Good answer: named sources (Google Search Central blog, Search Status Dashboard, a few practitioners) and a recent change they tested on a real site.

6. Which SEO metrics would you report to a CEO?

Good answer: organic clicks, conversions and revenue from organic traffic, visibility on target topics, and now AI citations. Rankings and traffic alone are not business results. See our list of SEO KPIs that matter.

Technical SEO interview questions

Technical questions work best as small cases. Give the symptom, ask for the diagnosis.

7. A page is indexed but gets no traffic. What do you check?

Good answer: the queries it ranks for in Search Console, search intent versus page format, competition on the SERP, internal links pointing to it, and whether another page targets the same keyword.

8. Search Console shows "Crawled, currently not indexed" on many URLs. Why?

Good answer: usually low quality or duplicate content, or weak internal linking. The fix is to improve, merge or remove pages, not to resubmit them again and again.

9. When do you use a canonical tag, a noindex or a robots.txt rule?

Good answer: a canonical tag to point duplicates to the main version, noindex to keep a page out of the index, robots.txt to stop crawling. Bonus point: blocking a page in robots.txt does not remove it from the index, and Google cannot see a noindex on a page it cannot crawl.

10. What are the Core Web Vitals and their thresholds?

Good answer: according to web.dev, LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less (INP replaced FID as a Core Web Vital in 2024) and CLS of 0.1 or less. A candidate who still cites FID has not updated their knowledge.

11. How would you handle a site migration?

Good answer: crawl and export every URL before the move, map each old URL to its new one, use 301 redirects, keep the content and internal links, then monitor Search Console and server logs for several weeks.

12. A JavaScript site has few pages indexed. Where do you start?

Good answer: compare the raw HTML and the rendered HTML (URL Inspection tool), check that links are real links in the HTML and that the main content is not loaded only after a user action.

Content and link building questions

These questions show whether the candidate builds lasting results or shortcuts that Google penalizes.

13. Two of our pages compete for the same keyword. What do you do?

Good answer: confirm the keyword cannibalization in Search Console, then merge the pages with a 301 redirect or give each one a distinct intent.

14. What does E-E-A-T mean for our content?

Good answer: E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust) is a framework from Google's quality rater guidelines, not a direct ranking factor. In practice: named authors, first-hand experience, sources and accurate facts.

15. Can we publish AI-written content?

Good answer: yes, if it is accurate and useful. Google's spam policies target scaled content abuse, defined as many pages "generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings", whatever the tool.

16. How do you get backlinks without breaking Google's rules?

Good answer: linkable assets (data, tools, guides), digital PR, partners, unlinked brand mentions. The same spam policies list "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as link spam.

17. How do you build a content plan from scratch?

Good answer: keyword research grouped into topics, one page per intent, priority based on business value and difficulty, internal linking between the pages of each topic, and a publishing rhythm the team can sustain.

18. How do you decide whether to update, merge or delete an old article?

Good answer: look at clicks, backlinks and conversions; update pages with potential, merge overlapping ones, delete or redirect pages with no traffic, no links and no purpose.

GEO and AI search interview questions

This is where most interview lists stop, and where the job has changed the most. GEO (generative engine optimization) is the work of getting a brand cited in answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Any SEO hired today should be able to answer these questions.

19. What do we need to appear in Google AI Overviews?

Good answer: Google's documentation on AI features and your website says there are no additional requirements: the page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. Classic SEO is the entry ticket.

20. What is query fan-out?

Good answer: AI Overviews and AI Mode may run several related searches on subtopics to build one answer. Content that covers the sub-questions of a topic, with clear and self-contained passages, has more chances to be picked.

21. How would you measure our visibility in ChatGPT?

Good answer: a fixed list of prompts buyers really ask, checked regularly on several assistants, recording whether the brand is mentioned, its position and which sources are cited. Plus AI referral traffic in GA4. A tool such as AI mention tracking automates this.

22. Which sources do AI assistants cite most?

Good answer: it depends on the assistant and the sector, so the candidate should look at the data rather than guess. Our study of what ChatGPT cites is a good basis for this discussion.

23. Should we block AI crawlers in robots.txt?

Good answer: distinguish training crawlers from the bots that fetch pages to answer users in real time. Blocking the latter can remove you from AI answers. Our guide to robots.txt for AI crawlers lists the main bots.

24. How do you write a page that AI assistants quote?

Good answer: a direct answer at the top of each section, definitions, sourced figures, comparison tables, a named author, and the brand present on third-party sites (reviews, forums, press) that assistants read.

Strategy and management questions for senior roles

25. You have 90 days and one developer. What do you prioritize?

Good answer: a quick audit, then a ranking of fixes by impact and effort (indexing problems first, then pages close to page one, then new content). An on-page audit is a fast starting point.

26. How long before we see results?

Good answer: an honest range, often several months for a new site or a new topic, with leading indicators (indexing, impressions) to track before clicks. Google warns that "no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google".

27. How do you get a development team to ship SEO fixes?

Good answer: tickets written in the developers' language, a business reason for each fix, a small number of priorities and a check after release.

28. How would you forecast organic traffic for a new section?

Good answer: search volume of the target keywords, realistic click-through rates by position, a ramp-up period, and a low and a high scenario rather than one figure.

29. Tell me about an SEO project that failed.

Good answer: a real case, the cause, what they measured and what they changed. A candidate with no failure has either little experience or little honesty.

30. In-house, agency or software: how would you split our SEO budget?

Good answer: in-house for strategy and knowledge of the product, outside help for specific expertise, software for repetitive work (keyword research, content production, monitoring). It shows whether the candidate thinks in terms of return on investment.

Which practical test should you give SEO candidates?

A practical exercise reveals more than any interview question. Keep it short, based on real material, and paid if it takes more than an hour.

What red flags should end an SEO interview?

• Guaranteed rankings or a promise of first position. Google says plainly that nobody can guarantee it.
• Buying links, private blog networks or "secret" techniques they will not explain.
• Keyword density targets, or advice that sounds like 2012.
• Results quoted without any metric, period or context.
• No knowledge of Search Console, or no opinion at all on AI answers.
• Every problem blamed on "the algorithm" or on the previous team.

What should candidates ask the employer?

An interview runs both ways. A good SEO candidate asks questions, and their absence is itself a signal for the recruiter. Useful ones: Who decides what gets published, and how fast can a technical fix go live? Do I get access to Search Console and analytics from day one? How is SEO success measured here: traffic, leads or revenue? What is the content budget, and is part of the production automated? Is the brand already tracked in AI answers? Candidates who want to strengthen their profile before the interview can look at our selection of SEO training courses or follow our free GEO course.

Hiring an SEO in the age of AI answers

The role now covers two channels: ranking on Google and being cited by AI assistants. The best hires understand both, measure both and explain both in business terms. A lot of the repetitive work (keyword research, writing and publishing articles, tracking prompts) can be handled by software, which lets a small team or a single SEO focus on strategy. That is what Sorank does on autopilot for SEO teams, with a 3-day free trial. Hire for judgment and method, test with real cases, and let tools carry the volume.