General interview questions tell you whether a company is organized and easy to work with. They do not tell you whether the people answering actually understand search. To test for depth, you need questions that are hard to answer with a rehearsed script. The goal is to listen for reasoning, not vocabulary. A shallow answer names tools and tactics. An expert answer connects a specific symptom to a testable cause and explains the tradeoffs involved.
Ask how they would prioritize a list of problems
A useful probe is this: “If an audit turned up ten technical issues, how would you decide which three to fix first?” This question works because there is no single correct answer, so a memorized response falls apart quickly. A shallow answer ranks issues by a generic severity label or simply works down the list. An expert answer ties prioritization to business impact. They will ask which pages drive revenue or leads, weigh how many URLs each issue affects, consider how much effort a fix requires, and explain that a small problem on an important template can matter more than a large problem on pages no one visits. The reasoning, not the ranking, is what reveals expertise.
Ask them to diagnose a symptom
Give them a realistic scenario and ask for their thinking out loud. For example: “Impressions for a section of the site dropped, but rankings for the main keywords look stable. Where would you look?” A shallow answer jumps straight to a conclusion, often blaming a recent algorithm update or recommending more content. An expert answer treats it as an investigation. They will mention checking Google Search Console for crawl and indexing changes, reviewing canonical tags, HTTP status codes, sitemaps, internal linking, and JavaScript rendering, and cross-checking a fresh crawl against Search Console data and, where needed, server logs. The willingness to gather evidence before naming a cause is the signal.
Ask what they would not be sure about
Expertise includes knowing the limits of what can be known. Ask how they would forecast results, or how confident they are that a change will improve rankings. A shallow answer promises specific outcomes or timelines with certainty. An expert answer explains that search results depend on competitors and on factors outside anyone’s control, so they work in ranges and probabilities, test changes, and measure rather than guarantee. Comfort with uncertainty is a stronger sign of competence than confidence is.
Ask about a recent change in search
Search shifts constantly, so current knowledge is a fair test. In early 2026, Google rolled out a Discover update in February and both a spam update and a broad core update in late March. The spam update widened enforcement against scaled, low-value AI content, expired domain manipulation, and site reputation abuse. The core update placed more weight on topic-level expertise, original value, and user experience signals. You do not need to memorize this yourself. Ask the company what has changed in search recently and how it affects their approach. An expert can describe a specific recent update and explain a concrete adjustment they made because of it. A shallow answer speaks in vague terms about Google “always changing” without naming anything.
Ask them to show their own results
A direct test is to ask how the company’s own website performs for the terms it competes on, and to walk you through it. Companies that practice what they sell can do this comfortably. Companies that cannot, or that become uncomfortable with the question, are telling you something useful.
What to listen for
Across all of these questions, the pattern is consistent. Shallow expertise sounds like a checklist: tactics named in order, outcomes promised, updates blamed in general. Real expertise sounds like a diagnosis: questions asked back to you, evidence gathered before conclusions, tradeoffs made explicit, and honesty about what is uncertain. Ask questions that have no scripted answer, then judge the quality of the thinking.