Kevin Hart & Usain Bolt: A Simple SEO Blunder

By: August Erickson | Published on Aug 26, 2020

NBC News has been receiving SUBSTANTIAL backlash this week, after they posted an article about Usain Bolt that featured a picture of Kevin Hart.

The reality is, this was just a simple SEO blunder that’s led to a PR nightmare for NBC News.

In the original article about Usain Bolt, there’s a related video at the bottom of the page. The video is about Kevin Hart testing positive for Coronavirus earlier this year.

For whatever reason, the social share image (or the featured image) for the article was the thumbnail from the Kevin Hart video, NOT a picture of Usain Bolt.

A completely avoidable mistake.

My Thoughts:

The lesson to take away from this is to ALWAYS double check your social share images (on Google AND on all major social media platforms) before pushing your content live.

 

For WordPress, I recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin to accomplish this.

 

The free version allows you to preview your content on JUST Google. You’ll have to get the premium version to be able to preview content on Google, Facebook, and Twitter.