I am an SEO Professional.
The consulting firm over at SEOMoz have put together a quiz for people who work in SEO. There are five arbitrary levels defined, based on the number of points each question has been assigned that you answer correctly. I don’t imagine many people will be advertising and linking their quiz results when some of the answers are debatable, though. More discussion on the debate and a couple of people telling their scores is at Sphinn.
I assure you, I am an SEO Professional. And I think that’s quite reasonable, seeing as I’ve not been heavily engaged in international SEO or have a current need to know off the top of my head what search engine is most popular in Korea (it’s Naver). I will admit to getting the following question wrong: “The de-facto version of a page located on the primary URL you want associated with the content is knows [sic] as:” The correct answer: “Canonical version”. If I ever speak to a client and discuss the “de-facto version of a page” as the “canonical version” of that page, I would be doing that client a disservice.
While I think businesses and nonprofits should do their homework and know some SEO and PPC, I do not think a 100% score on a test or a usability expert who engages focus groups is always the best SEO for you. I’ve said previously, “there’s an odd security in having what looks like the perfect search engine optimizer, only on paper.” An SEO may be ideal on paper, but can you work with and understand their language?
