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Should we allow SEO related questions?
We have recently received a search engine optimization (SEO) question.
Our scope currently does not explicitly include or exclude such questions, so I thought we should clarify this.
Possible options:
- allow only programming-related SEO questions (e.g., ensuring website compatibility with different devices and browsers similar to what Stack Overflow allows). However, SE includes a community dedicated to "webmasters" that allows other SEO-related questions.
- allow virtually all SEO-related questions. I am not sure where to place the boundary here. I would say that writing and editing website content, and using online tools to analyze website performance are off-topic and let the others (e.g. UX related, optimizing website speed and performance) be on-topic.
What do you think? How should we define the scope for SEO related questions.
1 answer
The scope currently lists as on-topic:
- Best practices, as long as clear "best" criteria are provided. Examples: fastest execution, least memory use, widest tool support for a target, most beginner-friendly IDE for a certain language and operating system
I think this covers the on-topic aspects of SEO, possibly with the addition of a note that the criteria should be technical and objective. (So actually IMO "most beginner-friendly" should be removed from the entry).
This seems to agree with your intuition about where to draw the line: questions about performance are fine and we don't need to care whether the reason for the question is SEO or client complaints that it's too slow.
On the other hand, questions about "how can I make my website rank higher" should be considered off-topic. It's possible to argue that that's a technical objective criterion, but I would counter-argue that it's not objective when viewed in the context of the lifetime of a Q&A because search engines keep changing their ranking systems in an arms race against SEO consultants.
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