Would You Hire An SEO Who Doesn’t Know The Difference Between Crawling, Indexing, Rendering & Rankings?

At the Google NYC SEO Meetup Lily Ray mentioned that when it comes to interviewing new employees for the Amsive Digital SEO team, she asks a question you must get right or you are immediate dismissed. The question is, what is the difference between crawling, indexing, rendering and rankings.

Danny Sullivan of Google shared this comment on Twitter saying “Says @lilyraynyc about hiring good SEOs: “We ask them the difference between crawling, indexing, ranking and rendering. You’d be surprised how many get this wrong.” I’m paraphrasing her, and it’s an excellent question #SearchCentralNYCSEOmeetup.”

To be clear, Lily was talking about an experienced SEO looking for a job, not an intern or someone with little to no experience.

Says @lilyraynyc about hiring good SEOs: “We ask them the difference between crawling, indexing, ranking and rendering. You’d be surprised how many get this wrong.” I’m paraphrasing her, and it’s an excellent question #SearchCentralNYCSEOmeetup pic.twitter.com/rlcAVc3wVK

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 27, 2022

Danny I guess agreed with this after this joke was made he responded as such:

I think it’s less about knowing that making someone an expert but rather that’s fundamental things that if someone doesn’t know, they’re not really qualified at all.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 27, 2022

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Now, do you think all SEOs should now these differences? I kind of do – I do think it is fundamental – but I bet you many do not know the difference between crawling, indexing, rendering and rankings?

Forum discussion at Twitter.