Scoring a 100% “Expert SEO Test” at SEOMOZ = BUNK
How many web design and development companies would dare claim this?
I did have to look up a couple obscure answers such as why the Bluefield directory was majorly penalized, and what the most popular search engine in Korea was, but there was not a single question that pertained to real-world and generally accepted search engine optimization development that I couldn’t answer answer. I think some of the questions are utterly useless such as who invented PageRank (although I did know the answer).
Because of a factual error in #62, my disagreement with some of their statements (I have evidence), and the vagueness of a couple of questions, I did do it a second time–but it shows that I am willing to understand other viewpoints of SEO. I can say I learned something new that may come in useful: the robots-nocontent tag. In fact, I would not trust anyone that claims to have gotten a 100% score the first time around (especially since a lot of the questions are gray, and the factual error that exists). I got a 90% the first time, but again, I still can’t honestly believe they have volumes of evidence to some of their claims–no one does in SEO.
I do think they should:
- Stick to more factual or widely accepted elements of SEO, instead of their opinion.
- Stick to more relevant optimization questions (stay on target)
- Expand the test with more questions
- Offer questions with a way to prioritize the answers from most to least important (e.g. what the most most important factors…
- Offer community feedback,giving credit to those with higher trust/credibility
- Be more precise in writing their questions and answers, and other factors that make it more about test taking skills than about SEO
- Reduce the double-negative writing in some of their questions such as “How will this not help your site not rank?”
- Perhaps offer a premium (paid) SEO test, with free form answers.
Anyways, if you are a web design firm, search engine optimization company, or someone who takes SEO seriously, test yourself and post your results.