Hey all you cool cats and kittens! I think that most of the planet has seen Tiger King by now, but if not, you must have at least heard about it. In these crazy coronavirus days, we’re all desperately trying to find ways to entertain ourselves at home and Netflix has come through for us yet again with this gem of a documentary.

Now, I will preface this by stating the obvious: keeping wild animals in captivity and under such horrific circumstances is never acceptable and from that perspective, Tiger King is quite a difficult watch. However, if we can put that to one side for the moment and focus solely on the absolutely insane human characters of this show, its viral appeal is obvious. But imagine my surprise when, halfway through my bowl of popcorn, the words “do you know the power you have if you search Google around the world and you’re the first choice every time?” I’m sorry, were they just talking about SEO in a Netflix documentary about illegal exotic animals? Yes, yes they were.

Enter Joe Exotic: internet troller and sketchy blackhat SEO mastermind (ok, maybe not quite but you get the picture).

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His attempts to push Carol Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue business down the search results with his Big Cat Rescue Entertainment company did result in some chuckles but is a good reminder to big and small businesses alike: your brand is everything.

So what can we learn from Joe’s attempts to trick the algorithm and bring down his rival? Quite a bit, actually.

The Backstory

I won’t go into the nitty-gritty details of what happened, episode four alone is worth the watch if you can’t stomach the whole show. But here’s the general gist:

Joe Exotic owns G.W. Zoo in Oklahoma. He buys and breeds tigers, lions and various other illegal exotic animals. Carol Baskin owns Big Cat Rescue in Florida and “rescues” (that’s a debatable point that we’re not going to get into) said illegal exotic animals. Joe and Carol hate each other. At the start of episode four, another individual in the exotic animal trade discusses how Carol’s business appears at the top of the search results everywhere for big cats, big cat rescue (it’s her business name, after all) etc. So what does Joe do? He renames his travelling tiger show with the exact same name but sticks “Entertainment” on the end. Genius idea, right? Not so fast.

What Does SEO Have To Do With This?

We’re going to skip over the fact that Joe went around almost every copyright law you can think of and focus on the SEO implications here. At first, it was a brilliant move. After all, we know that one of the ranking factors that Google takes into consideration is the business name and domain. The keywords were there, so it started to rank on the first page. Their websites looked almost identical. Even the logo font that Joe used was exactly the same. When users were looking for Carol’s business in Florida, up popped Joe’s website to book him and his tigers for an appearance at your event. To Google and to users, these two were almost the same business.

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Joe’s tactics worked for a while but Carol’s online reputation managed to hold him back in the months before their legal dispute forced him to backtrack. Joe’s rudimentary SEO knowledge may have gained him a couple of months of fun but he didn’t take into account some of the other key factors that Google considers, namely backlinks and domain age. Carol’s well-established business had links coming in from everywhere for years. As a “rescue” business, a number of legitimate organisations and news outlets featured her in interviews and write-ups with links leading back to her website, improving her overall search authority and presence. Whatever shady tactics Joe tried to use, it was never going to last long.

Your Name Matters

Why does all of this matter if Joe was never going to win? Because it goes to show you how much your name matters. Yes, Joe was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempts to jump to the top of Google search results but only after a couple of months. Carol fully admitted that she had calls to her business from people thinking that she was associated with Joe and were looking for him instead. He even went as far as registering for a Florida address and phone number to steal as much local SEO traffic as he could.

Maintaining your online brand reputation is just as important these days as your offline reputation. Some things are out of our control but working to improve the mix of your backlinks and keeping your website content updated frequently are a few ways that you can help search engines to acknowledge your website and understand exactly what you and your business are about. Hopefully you’ll never be in a situation like this where a competitor is actively trying to take you down or masquerade as you, but it does happen. Of course getting a legal team involved at that point is the best course of action, but keeping your own digital properties in the best shape possible is always a good idea.

Lying Never Gets You Anywhere

Let’s talk penalties, shall we? Trust is a big issue for Google and for users. It’s a fundamental human need. If you can’t trust where your information is coming from or the people providing it, where does that leave you? While Joe’s attempts to confuse web users looking for Carol’s business were somewhat amusing, it was also illegal and not the smartest idea. Tricking users with fake or misleading information is one of the fastest ways to find yourself on Google’s naughty list and swiftly removed from search results, either temporarily or, in some extreme cases, forever.

Google updates their algorithm every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. In fact, we just saw a core update back on May 4th that targeted sites in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. They’re smart and they know what they’re looking for. Most of all, they know what users are looking for. Even without the lawsuit, Joe’s new web presence would likely have been removed and blacklisted by Google within several months. If he had been serious about the business and not using all of this simply to troll Carol, he would have taken a massive hit here. No listing in the search results = no search visibility = no organic traffic. Not a great move for any business, I’m sure you’ll agree.

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Joe ultimately ended up in prison after a $1 million copyright infringement lawsuit...and being charged with attempting to have Carol murdered. I wish I was joking.

But if there’s one thing we can take away from all of this, it’s all about being honest. Don’t mislead your users by pretending to be someone else. It’s not smart and it won’t grow your business long-term. Provide helpful information and build your brand reputation that way. Make sure you’re known for being a trustworthy resource that’s worthy of people’s time and money.

Who would have thought that we could learn so much valuable marketing insight from a man with a blonde mullet and a few hundred big cats, eh?