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I know this is an introductory course, and it offered a good high level overview of SEO, but it seems a little too high level for someone wanting to really understand how SEO works. For someone completely new to SEO, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe this is by design so that more advanced courses will be taken, but I think providing a bit more detail and case study of the topics presented in the course would go a long way to making this a great course. For example, include different website comparisons for topics like websites with good keyword use, versus bad keyword use, show a site that effectively used back-linking versus one that did not, what did the good site do differently (both in theory and technically speaking), show a well braded website that pulls together many of the concepts versus one that is not, deconstruct a few websites and show how the concepts work, and how to implement the concepts presented. For a intro course, it wouldn’t have to be detailed-that can come later, but having some real world examples would really help the concepts to stick. That said, if you just want a better perfunctory understanding of SEO, this course does that well!

Overall I found the course insightful. Starting from revision of what jobs can one consider having expertise in SEO was an interesting idea of the course designers, but I personally liked it. The following part on the history of internet was also great, as I never really gave much thought to the beginnings. SEO best practices was probably the part that I kind of expected the course to start with, but it was nice to have the perspectives set in place before diving into more technical aspects.

At times I found the videos quite fast and some terms I needed to check additionally to better understand what it is about. The extra reads and videos were very nice and helpful. I must say that the tests were not always as easy I would have expected from the course material and they did require some thought.

I think that if someone has own web and just wants to get to know some basics on how to make it rank a bit better, probably focusing on week 3 and 4, especially extra materials, will be most beneficial.

This course was a great overview of SEO in a nutshell. This is a good part of it.Also, there were a bit of technical tools which can be used for understanding the SEO a bit intensified than others. Next I became aware of the history of SEO. Also came to know that it needs a lot of reading regarding different niche we will work on. Such as, if I work for a lubricant company, I have to be highly aware of users that what they search for also I should know all pros and cons of lubricant industry regarding economical aspects to perform the SEO tactics in ethical formation. Besides this course helped me to understand the precise designation of the career in this field of work. Overall, this course was very consistent about its topics. Mostly I liked the course as it is totally related to excessive studies, psychological strategies and tactics. Which helped me the most to complete this course with great enthusiasm. Hope other courses will be more exciting with more technical and triggering points.

A good introduction to SEO, where the history of search engines, career options and some fundamental knowledge are at the core. For an introduction though, it has a lot of theory, and without any practical application, some of it becomes a bit 'floaty'. I think that a well-developed testing environment, like a virtual server with a test site- and search environment would be a very good idea. Even I, who worked as a content writer for the past 10 years, have had a hard time wrapping my head around all of this theory, without knowing how to physically/practically apply it. I would give it 3 and a half stars, but as it is not possible to give half stars, I will rate it 4, solely based on the fact, that the chapter on the history of search engines is a very interesting and well structured module. Rebekah, the instructor, is good - talks slow and clear and keeps you fairly engaged.

In this course I also learned history of SEO. But in quiz many questions ( mostly week 1 and week 2) based upon history like for example , First Robot , How invented it , First engine , Given name of scientist and asked what's he invented , and many others. So, my request is that you shouldn't ask these type of question in quiz because it's very hard to remember all this. And after quiz everyone will forget that. All this are good for understand SEO but not for quiz.

And other thing is , you provide reading materials for 1 hour,1 hour 30 min, 30 min etc.. But it takes more time than you mentioned. Because you provide direct links and there is a lots of material.

So I want that you should provide your own notes which are made by that links materials.

And rest of things are very very good. I learned so much in only few hours of few weeks. videos are very much.

I want to give this course a 5/5 but the only issue I had was that the quizzes could be clearer/more relevant to the course material. I did many of the "Coach AI" pre-tests before quizzes and I felt like those really challenged my knowledge on actual language directly from the material, whereas I felt like with some of the quiz questions I was making assumptions to the answer based off of what I knew from the material. For instance, in Week 3 the quiz asks, "Topic Association is ________." The capitalization here may lead you to believe this was an important keyword in the lesson, but it wasn't really. This question wasn't outright addressed in the material and I felt like I was inferring when answering instead of *knowing.*

The peer review system is often questionable, but here in particular. The long peer review forms were especially long here; so it seems that most people just rubber stamped their peers through rather than actually checking the dozens of checkpoints. While reviewing others I noticed so many people that just posted empty projects and nobody did the video creation project properly.

The course materials were good, but I feel that the low standards of the peer review process mean that most people in the course put little effort in and there was rampant plagiarism to be seen (I saw many peers copy/paste the same pieces of work) which dimishes the value that this course would have in any professional application review process.

It is what it says. An introduction to SEO. I really liked the part where they discussed different algorithm updates on Google and how it has affected websites. Just by watching through all the videos won't help you with anything. The videos are more like an introduction to topics and are mostly things you already know if you've been building and managing websites. The core material is those links provided in the course materials. I found a lot of interesting sites and helpful tools. I also learnt about techniques (usually recommended on some articles) that I should stay away from to avoid penalization. Overall, a great course. But could've gone a little deeper with the concepts. A great course for complete beginners.

This course was incredibly informative and very easy to follow. The instructor, Rebekah May, was great. The course materials were presented in a very cohesive way that built upon the next. the only complaint or feedback I have- is that Week 3 was noticeably more time intensive than the rest. Not sure with the way the course was structured that it could be broken up more- but as a learner- it was noticeably more intensive than the rest of the course. Overall it was a really informative and useful course for those wanting to get a good grasp on SEO. Thanks for the effort in putting this together- it was quite well done.

As a content marketing manager, I am required to know about SEO. As someone with very limited knowledge on SEO, I am glad that I stumbled upon this course. Definitely a good start for beginners, who can understand about the various types of SEOs and the factors that impact it. Thank you to University of California, and my tutor/guide Rebekah May for designing and teaching this course. My only suggestion would be that everything need not be compressed in 4 weeks (week 3 of course is a tad lengthy). But I understand courses online have to be designed that way. I hope something is done about it.

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization was an excellent way to consolidate some of the knowledge and experience I have in this area from prior projects, and introduced me to a comprehensive history and understanding of search engines, algorithms, best practices, branding and more. I would recommend it to anyone interested in obtaining an introductory overview. My only suggestion to improve the course would be for more updated reading materials, as many of them are somewhat outdated due to the lightning-fast speed of change in this industry.

Decent course. Takes a while to get you to best practices and more useful info, but hang in there and then it starts to become useful. I am assuming that it will get more in-depth as we get further into the specialization (I signed up for it).

If you have any SEO experience/real world marketing and website management experience, you can probably skip this first course entirely, or just take the quizzes and pass...though I am guessing it won't be the same situation in the later classes.

Thanks,

This course was great to get a more broad understanding of what SEO is and some more steps to take to improve a website's rank in search results. A little feedback... the course focused quite a lot on the history of search. Also, there was a lot of mention of what used to be. For people who don't have a background in SEO or know much of the history, this could make things more confusing. What's really important is how everything works right now. Really appreciate this course. Great work.

Thank You for a brilliant walk-through in the world of SEO as I took baby steps into understanding what the SEO really means. The course content was simple and easy to understand and had a lot of material and of course, important links to learn from. Rarely, I stumbled across some concepts like back links or on-page SEO or CTR etc. which I though could have been better explained. But overall, this has added fuelled a great curiosity in me to keep learning further. Thanks again!

It was a good and user-friendly course, which turned out to be absolutely important to understand the basic skills and roles involved in the SEO and how to take the first steps on the market.

The only thing I did not like is that I had to subscribe to get the certificate of completion, and I could not even see the results of my final resume quiz if I was not subscribed.

I think that the completion quiz results should be provided for free to all the participants.

It is a fundamental course to have a basic knowledge and background of SEO development. The content is more about the history and theory with simple example. It provide many reading references but there is no further explanation or discussion. Some of the peers did provide meaningful questions and opinions, but some didn't. I would prefer more practice opportunities rather than just watch the video.

It is a real introduction course, but cannot apply on job.

My only criticism is that for an "Introduction" type course, there was definitely some prior knowledge already needed. This is not an entry level course and you will need to understand the basics of marketing and the terms, ideas and methods already associated with SEO.

Oh, and the transcripts of the videos were not accurate and confusing, which for someone who is hearing impaired and need they transcripts to be "on point," that was pretty disapointing.

I had n awesome learning experience studying this course! It opened me up to clearer realities of SEO as a career; because, now, I understand, the history, functional design and updates of search engine development, amongst other key knowledge, such as developing optimization strategy (with best industry practices) for my prospecting clients to improve their search rankings. Thank you Coursera ! Thank you University of California Davis!

This course seems to have spent as much time discussing career fields as it did teaching anything. The primary thing learned is the history of Google algorithm updates and how they influence SEO best practices. You don't really learn much about SEO, but I guess it is an intro into the field. Did not cover as much as I wanted. If it did, I'd guess I would end up paying UC Davis less, and that would be a bad thing for UC Davis.

The course is informative. I liked that the basic history of SEO was presented. Some of the additional reading materials seemed a little outdated, as in a link or two were broken or no longer correct. I did find that for the questions, it seemed that you were more concerned with trying to trick someone with wording, than with really making sure the material was understood. Overall a good, basic course though.

It's a very good course, that increased my basic knowledge a lot about SEO and let me be more aware of stuff that I am sure will be helpful in learning the deeper information, yet my only complain is that there were some terms and information in the part of "Evaluating links" that I felt that I needed further explanation in it, as they were a little bit confusing for me. But overall, the course is perfect!

It was rather dull in most areas and repetitive. It was difficult to stay focused especially during the history portion. There should be activities to break it up, some kind of interactive task to wake back up. The videos were longer than needed in most cases followed by even more reading. I like the other courses in this specialization but this one was very dry and it was difficult to stay focused.

I would have loved if a copyeditor worked on the transcripts of the videos! I know the transcripts were automatically generated (or, at least, they seemed to be), but they weren't always accurate. I learn better reading than listening, so I relied on the transcripts a lot. There were several times when the transcript was incredibly confusing because it didn't align with the video.

The content and the instructors were great! They covered a lot of ground, but they were knowledgeable and able to present the material in a relatable way, particularly by using real-world examples. My only issue was that some of the study materials were from several years ago and were from websites that did not look the best. There were also a few links that didn't go anywhere.