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September 8, 2025 13 mins

This episode of IQ Builder simplifies confusing SEO concepts by providing five common examples of how SEO sounds confusing: meta descriptions, JavaScript, XML sitemaps, robots.txt files, and 3XX redirects. Meredith’s Husband explains how each works in plain language, using relatable examples. 

Timestamps

[0:00] Introduction to Part Two of IQ Builder
[0:24] SEO made into common sense
[1:26] Myth about meta descriptions and SEO
[2:30] How users interact with title tags vs meta descriptions
[3:31] JavaScript and why it hurts SEO
[5:53] XML sitemaps explained simply
[7:09] Robots.txt as the mall security guard
[8:50] Understanding 3XX redirect errors
[10:30] Good vs bad redirects with hardware store example
[11:59] Wrapping up with common sense SEO

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Meredith's husband (00:00):
Part two of the IQ Builder how to turn SEO
into common sense and if youhaven't heard part one of this,
I recommend listening to thatfirst.

Meredith (00:09):
I do too.

Meredith's husband (00:09):
Yeah, okay.

Meredith (00:11):
So make more sense.

Meredith's husband (00:12):
Yes, in this episode I'm just going to go
through some things that are inmy IQ Builder.
Okay, got five examples.
If you want more, you can go toMerit's Husband.
Yes, check it out.
Number one and no realparticular order, but I think
number one.
I made number one because Ithink it's pretty common People
are confused Meta tags.
You've heard a lot about metatags, right, and how important

(00:34):
they are for SEO.
They seem like the secret thingyou got to do your meta tags,
blah, blah, blah.
Okay, so meta tags are just.
There's really only one metatag.
There's your meta descriptiontag.
Your title tag is your titletag.
That's technically not a metatag.
And there's your meta keywordstag, which used to be popular
years ago.
Google doesn't even look at itanymore.
Nobody looks.

(00:54):
No search engines look at it.
So it's your meta descriptiontag that we're talking about now
.
So what people say is this isreally important for SEO, right?

Meredith (01:02):
Right.
Do you want to define what itis?
I?

Meredith's husband (01:05):
will.
Yes, okay, but the rumor thatyou've probably heard is, oh,
super important for SEO.
You got to put your keywords inyour meta description tag,
right, okay?
So your meta description tag isthe little bit of text that
shows up right on Google.
Yes, when you do a searchbeneath the title tag, so it's
the little text, the blackparagraph text.

(01:26):
There's usually like a sentenceworth of text there.
Okay, now, as a user, when yougo to Google and you do a search
, how often do you read the metadescription tag?

Meredith (01:36):
I would think always.

Meredith's husband (01:39):
Well, probably not always I don't know
.

Meredith (01:41):
I don't have it in front of me so I can't.
I don't know, so what?

Meredith's husband (01:44):
you would probably do like first, you're
going to look at the title tagsTitle yeah.
And if the title looks good,then you're going to read the
meta description tag.
So you're going to probablyglance at a lot of at least
several of the title tags andmaybe one or two of the meta
description tags, or maybe youjust click through.
So my point is fewer people aregoing to read the meta

(02:05):
description tag than the titletag.

Meredith (02:06):
It's less important than the title tag.
Yes, that absolutely.
It's in descending order.
Yes, exactly.

Meredith's husband (02:13):
And so if you read the meta description,
as a user and you decide youwant to check out that page and
you go to that page.
All that needs to happen isthat your meta description needs
to coincide with what isactually on the page.
You can't stuff all yourkeywords into your meta
description about one thing andthen have your page be about
like kind of something a littledifferent, right, okay, that's

(02:35):
the importance.
If you were Google, that's whatyou want to have happen.
Okay.

Meredith (02:38):
Yeah.

Meredith's husband (02:39):
So, as a website owner, you just need to
make sure that every page hasits own meta description tag.
It needs to be different?
Okay, it needs to describe.
It literally needs to describewhat is on that page.
That's all you need to do.
You don't need to worry aboutstuffing your keywords in there
Doesn't matter.
Google has said you don't needto stuff keywords in your meta
description tags.
It makes no difference.

(03:00):
Okay, here's a.
That's one.
That was number one, Number twoJavaScript.
Have you heard about JavaScript?

Meredith (03:07):
I've heard about it.

Meredith's husband (03:08):
Yeah, javascript is really bad for SEO
.
You want to avoid JavaScriptwhenever you can.

Meredith (03:12):
Okay.

Meredith's husband (03:13):
Okay, and so what JavaScript does is it
controls the action on a website.
So, for example, when thingsmove, basically that's
JavaScript is making that happen.

Meredith (03:26):
When things move.
What do you mean when thingsmove?

Meredith's husband (03:29):
basically, that's JavaScript is making that
happen when things move.
What do you mean by when thingsmove, like a drop-down menu?
Oh, drop-down menus are goingto be controlled by JavaScript.
Videos, videos no, okay, unlessif you have like something that
opens up a video, like, say,there's a FAQ section, sometimes
you click a question and theinformation drops down, that is

(03:50):
JavaScript.
If you have something like thatthat says display video and
then it opens it up, that'sJavaScript.

Meredith (03:55):
Okay, okay.

Meredith's husband (03:56):
Okay.
So again, as a user, when yougo to a webpage, what is, what
are some of the first things youdo?
So you probably do things likeyou look at the headline, you
look at the subheadings, youprobably look at the navigation.

Meredith (04:10):
Yeah.

Meredith's husband (04:10):
What you don't do.
I'm assuming, or tell me if I'mwrong.
You probably don't open up allthe dropdowns and check to see
what's inside all of them.

Meredith (04:18):
Correct.
Especially, you do whatever youcame there to do.

Meredith's husband (04:23):
Right, and so Google knows this, right.
So when something is inside adropdown, ie uses JavaScript.
Yes, okay, so it usesJavaScript.
Whatever is in that dropdown isgoing to be given less
importance by Google, right,right, it's inside.
You need JavaScript.
So Google technically can readJavaScript.

(04:45):
Yeah, they really kind of don't.
If you put something behindJavaScript, there's a decent
chance Google is not even goingto read it.
It's not even going to see it,and a lot of other search
engines do not.
Ai bots do not.
They don't even bother tryingto read JavaScript right now.

Meredith (05:00):
Right now, by the time this podcast airs in four days.

Meredith's husband (05:04):
So yeah, the concept or the term JavaScript,
you know, and JavaScript beingbad for SEO, that's what it is.

Meredith (05:11):
Okay.

Meredith's husband (05:12):
If somebody comes to your website and they
need to take an action in orderto see some of your content.
Yes, there's JavaScript, right,that's not as important, okay,
right.
Okay, that was number two.
Number three XML sitemap.
Okay, does that sound confusing?

Meredith (05:29):
Yes.

Meredith's husband (05:34):
Okay, everything sounds confusing.
Xml sitemap okay, does thatsound confusing?
Yes, okay, everything sounds.
It's a sitemap.
It's exact.
It's a map of your website.
Now it's xml because it used tobe.
They used to have html sitemaps.
Remember, like, like years ago,you would go to a website and
there'd be a sitemap on thebottom and you click on it and
it would just list all the pageson a website.

Meredith (05:49):
No.

Meredith's husband (05:50):
Okay, well, that used to happen.
They don't do that anymore.
It's what we call.
They changed it and they do itwith XML now, and Google and all
other search engines recognizethis format called XML and it's
literally just a map of yourwebsite.
You are literally saying toGoogle hey, google, here are all

(06:10):
my pages and where to find them.

Meredith (06:13):
Got it Okay, like the little brochure when you go to a
zoo, which you shouldn't, yes,like a little map.

Meredith's husband (06:18):
I think of it like the directory in a mall.

Meredith (06:21):
Oh, that's better If you remember malls like you go
into the mall, Do I?

Meredith's husband (06:24):
remember malls, there's a little
directory Orange Julius.
Yeah, you are here.
You look at all the stars.
That's like what a sitemap isdoing.
Got it Okay, pretty simpleconcept.

Meredith (06:35):
Yeah, but.
Xml sitemap people are yeah,why yeah?

Meredith's husband (06:39):
Again, it's because coders created these
things.

Meredith (06:43):
Blame the coders.

Meredith's husband (06:43):
Yes, okay.

Meredith (06:45):
It's all the coders.

Meredith's husband (06:45):
A similar, now a similar one.
That was number three, asimilar one.
Number four is the robotstxtfile.
What, yeah, sounds confusing,right?

Meredith (06:54):
All these, yeah, yeah, I can tell it's making your
head hurt.
Yes.

Meredith's husband (06:59):
A robotstxt file is like the security guard
at the door of the mall.

Meredith (07:05):
Of the mall.

Meredith's husband (07:05):
It doesn't.
He or she doesn't let everyoneinto the mall, Right?
Okay, your robotstxt file doesthe same thing.
It lets it.
Presumably you're always goingto let people into your website,
but maybe you have a privatearea, that where you don't want
people to go, and you're goingto say, hey, browsers can go
here, but they don't go overhere.

(07:25):
Or, what a lot of people don'trealize is that there's a lot of
, there's thousands andthousands of bots out there
crawling the web all the time.
Your robotstxt file is going tosay, hey, bots from Google,
yeah, you guys are allowed to goover here.
Bots from Spandex you guys arenot allowed.
Ok, bots from destroy allwebsites?

Meredith (07:47):
Yeah, exactly Not allowed.
Yeah, ok, that's what arobottxt, okay, bots from
Destroy all websites?
Yeah, exactly Not allowed.

Meredith's husband (07:50):
Yeah, okay, that's what a robotstxt file is
doing.

Meredith (07:55):
Pretty simple.
What does a txt mean?
Is it text?

Meredith's husband (07:57):
It's a text file.
That's just a text file.
Yeah right, your robotstxt fileis a file and there's not even
two full sentences of text there.
Usually Are those the thingsthat you have on your computer
and you have thousands of them,and you don't want to delete

(08:17):
them.
No, those are you mean, likethe files that?

Meredith (08:18):
begin with a dot.
Yeah, no, those are that'ssomething different.

Meredith's husband (08:20):
Okay, okay, that was number four.
Number five this is a prettycommon one 3xx errors what?

Meredith (08:26):
Again sounds confusing right.
It sounds like XXX.

Meredith's husband (08:31):
Well, it's 3XX, 3xx errors.
So an error like a 301, a 302,a 304.
401?
Nope, those would be 4XX.
Similar but different.
3xx errors are redirects.
Okay, okay, a redirect.
You try to go to one page andyou probably don't realize it as

(08:53):
a user, but you might beredirected to another page.
It happens behind the scenes.

Meredith (08:58):
Indeed.

Meredith's husband (08:59):
These are interesting because they're both
good and bad.
Sometimes you need them andsometimes you don't, so let me
give you an example.

Meredith (09:06):
Please.

Meredith's husband (09:07):
Let's say you are a shop owner.
Yes, let's say a hardware store, you've got a hardware store.
I'm just making this up,somebody comes in and somebody
comes in and they say I need ahammer.
Where are your hammers?
Yes, and you as the web, theweb shop, the shop owner says
hammers are on aisle seven.

(09:28):
Super customer goes over toaisle seven.
There's a little note in aisleseven that says hammers are on
aisle two.
Oh, okay, well, go over to,because they used to be on aisle
seven.
Right, right, okay.
So the user, or the user, thecustomer, goes to aisle two.
In aisle two there's a littlenote that says hammers are on
aisle four.

Meredith (09:46):
That's when you leave the store.

Meredith's husband (09:47):
Yeah, well, let's say, you really really
need a hammer.

Meredith (09:50):
Okay, you go to aisle four.

Meredith's husband (09:53):
Aisle four says there's a note that says
hammers are on aisle 10.
And that's where the hammersare.
Okay, so great.
Oh my gosh.
So let's say you knew exactlywhere the hammers were as the
owner of the shop.

Meredith (10:05):
Right.

Meredith's husband (10:06):
So why did you tell the customer to go
through all those?
Okay, you wouldn't do that.
That's when redirects are bad.
Yeah, internally, if somebodyis in your site, you don't want
to do that.

Meredith (10:18):
No, you do not.

Meredith's husband (10:20):
So let's say you hire an employee Okay,
you're the owner you hire a new,a new person to help you.

Meredith (10:26):
Yes.

Meredith's husband (10:27):
And that person doesn't know where the
hammers are, but they did knowthat they were on aisle four at
one point.
So if they tell people theywere or at least they might not
be now, but check aisle four,that the customer can go to
aisle four and then see, oh,they moved to aisle 10.

(10:48):
So similarly, if other websiteslink to a page on your website
that has moved, you want thosepeople to be redirected.

Meredith (10:55):
Yes, okay, there we go .

Meredith's husband (10:58):
So those are redirects.
Hopefully that makes sense.
That's what 3XX errors are and3XX 90% of the time it's going
to be a 301.
It's a redirect.

Meredith (11:07):
Okay.

Meredith's husband (11:08):
The others are much more rare.

Meredith (11:10):
Okay, so does that help make these things?
Yeah, that makes more sense.
I feel like there need to belittle bobbleheads or figurines
of like a security guard wearingthe TXT.

Meredith's husband (11:26):
That's great .
I should do that, I shouldanimate.
So these are all examples frommy IQ builder.
I should create littlecharacters for each entry.
Yeah, little icons.

Meredith (11:35):
Because then you'd be able to visualize oh the 3XX.

Meredith's husband (11:39):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying Makes it
more friendly and approachable,just at least visual.
Yeah, so if this has helped, ifyou know somebody who is
frustrated by things like thisand thinks SEO is confusing,
send them this or send them.

Meredith (11:55):
The previous episode yes, previous episode one right
before.

Meredith's husband (11:58):
This is a good intro to this one, yeah,
and next week we will talk abouthow AI is sort of making some
of these things more importantthan others.

Meredith (12:07):
Interesting.

Meredith's husband (12:10):
I hope this helps.
I hope it helps too.

Meredith (12:13):
And we're telling that there are no secrets because
it's all common sense.

Meredith's husband (12:18):
The secret is there are no secrets.
Shh, don't tell anyone, there'sno secret.
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