SEO & AI Search (GEO) Expert

Improve your Google ranking with Peter Mahoney, 20+ years SEO & Wordpress experience

  • SEO Overhaul
  • SEO Campaign
  • WP Support
  • Blog
    • SEO Emails
  • Praise

SEO’s walking dead, and their house of cards

June 20, 2014 by Peter Mahoney

SEO's walking dead, and their house of cards Wordpress SEO ExpertI read an article this morning which shared Gale Ann’s view on Internet piracy (she’s the producer of a popular TV show called The Walking Dead) .

However, this post isn’t commenting on piracy as a topic, rather Ann’s own comment that a Google search for Netflix’s House of Cards (another very popular TV program) doesn’t even bring up the official site in the top 50 results.

On the surface, she’s saying “look at all the piracy sites that come before the proper one!”, but behind that is the idea that by default, the official site for anything should come top. The problem is, Netflix’s site for House of Cards has terrible SEO, that’s why it performs so poorly.

There’s not nearly enough textual content, and the meta tags are actually about Netflix, not the show, and therefore they score very poorly for relevancy (how many words in the tags also appear on the page) which is likely to have them penalised by Google, not shoved higher up the rankings.

This serves as an excellent cautionary tale. Just because you feel you deserve to be in the top spot, doesn’t mean you will be. If other people are writing about your industry, product or service, and do it better than you do—they will beat you in the rankings.

If you care about your position, invest in some proper, industry-leading SEO—and get where you want to be.

  • Original article, The Walking Dead producer criticises Game of Thrones executive over piracy
  • Netflix, House of Cards

Filed Under: Google, News, Opinion, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Wordpress

Comments

  1. Penelope SEO says

    July 10, 2014 at 10:57 am

    Hi, after reading this article I am going to share it with my colleagues–I work for an SEO company myself–and you’re clearly at the top of the game!

Get FREE Wordpress SEO tips!

I send regular newsletters with WordPress SEO expert-level tips. Sign up to get them, along with my FREE e-book “Ongoing SEO Success”.

Did I mention they’re free!

Subscribe for free

Praise

I have over 2,500 5-star feedback reviews (and I’ve never received less than the full five.)

Here’s just one example, from Mike who runs Costello Entertainments:

Migration, Hosting, SEO and Speed Work on our new website all completed quickly and efficiently and Peter was most helpful in fixing an issue with a Popover on the site as well. If you’re thinking about asking Peter to do a job for you or hesitating, JUST DO IT! – He knows programming and the internet inside out, he’ll get the job done for you professionally, with a smile. I wish I could call a plumber or a tradesman to do the jobs I can’t do myself with the same level of confidence.
Read a lot more.

Recent Blogs

  • How do I make the most of AI search optimisation?
    Thank you for sharing the recent update. I’m in the early stages of planning for the upcoming year, and with ...
  • AI Search (also known as GEO) – the biggest change in SEO & search since Google launched
    Keeping ahead of the AI component of search is essential – and I am actively managing this for my clients. I ...
  • Outreach for backlinks – how to get quality links that Google will love
    I’m thinking of redirecting my Virtual Assistant work to other tasks as the generic LinkedIn work I ...
  • (Small) Pricing changes for 2025
    When COVID first hit, like a lot of people around the world I wanted to help my clients as much as possible ...

Legal

  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Disclaimer

Prices are quoted exclusive of VAT unless expressly stated.

Also read

  • Payment information

RSS

Peter Mahoney, WordPress SEO expert blog

Recent Posts

  • How do I make the most of AI search optimisation?
  • AI Search (also known as GEO) – the biggest change in SEO & search since Google launched
  • Outreach for backlinks – how to get quality links that Google will love
  • (Small) Pricing changes for 2025
  • My site has errors – timeouts – and my host isn’t helping me

© Copyright 2025 SEO & AI Search (GEO) Expert · All Rights Reserved · Site by Peter Mahoney