Does viral help with SEO? Not really

I wanted to find out how viral impacts SEO for different businesses. I thought that with all the news coverage and links these sites received, that their businesses would be thriving and they would rank for everything.

Spoiler alert: I was wrong.

There has to be some merit to that though, right? Even Google’s John Mueller seems to be on board with digital PR.

To learn more, I looked at dozens of websites. Some are from when I was judging search awards. Others are from different Slack groups. I also asked for examples on Twitter. I have found that going viral helps their rankings a bit, but not as much as you might expect.

There are a few examples I want to share with you. It’s also worth mentioning that going viral still helps with things like branding, awareness, leads and possibly even new business opportunities. Let’s dive in.

It has been more than two years since an infamous political press conference took place at the “wrong” Four Seasons. A presidential press conference was held at a Philadelphia landscaping company, Four Seasons Total Landscaping, instead of the Four Seasons Hotel.

It was a case of reality being stranger than fiction. I don’t think this event would be believable if it was in a sitcom. If you’re curious about the story itself, you can read about it. In fact, there is even a documentary.

The results look good at first glance

You can see the crazy spike in both traffic and domains linking to the company at the time of the press conference. It...