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The Edward Show

Edward Sturm

Daily SEO advice, hacks, and interviews with some of the top voices in search engine optimization, as well as sit-downs with many undiscovered talents.

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  • 109 episodes
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  • S1 · E1163
    September 10 · 11 min

    The $50,000 Internal Linking Experiment: Links That Get Clicked Carry More Weight

    E1163: Does Google care whether people actually click the links on your page? I break down a $50,000 internal linking experiment across 15 websites, plus a Google patent that describes assigning different weights to links based on the probability that users will click them. The findings challenge a lot of standard SEO thinking around internal links, PageRank dilution, link placement, and how authority flows through a site. In this episode: - A $50,000 internal linking experiment conducted across 15 websites - How increasing internal links produced higher rankings and higher ad RPMs - What happened when pages went from 3 - 4 internal links to 20+ - Why the tester found no ranking decline from adding more internal links - How stronger internal linking eliminated "Crawled - currently not indexed" problems across his sites - How he found five internal links pointing to a page was an important threshold for indexing - Why internal links appearing earlier than other internal links on the page produced stronger ranking results - The click-tracking data showing a clear correlation between internal link clicks and ranking improvements - How internal linking based on topical similarity performed better than restricting links by categories or tags - How opening internal links in the same tab versus a new tab made no ranking difference in his tests - Dan Petrovic's PageRank Split Experiment involving a page with 4,225 followed outbound links - How a test site jumped from position 79 to position 3 despite receiving a link from a page with thousands of outgoing links - Google's patent "Ranking Documents Based on User Behavior and/or Feature Data" - Google's patent language describing link weights based on the probability that a particular link will be selected - How Google's patent describes collecting information about which links users selected - How browsers or browser assistants are described as sources of user-behavior data - Google's patent's example of recording actual clicks from one page to multiple linked pages - How click instances are used to train a model predicting which links users are likely to select - How links on the same page do not necessarily deserve the same weight - How this connects with what we already know about Google using click data through NavBoost - Why the most important internal links on your site should be links people actually want to click The big takeaway: internal linking is not just about adding links and distributing PageRank. Placement matters. Relevance matters. User behavior matters. And the links people click carry more weight. ⭐️ Black Hat World: I've Spent Over $50K on Internal Linking Experiments - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ama-guide-ive-spent-over-50k-on-internal-linking-experiments-and-tests-this-year-here-is-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-it.1628963/#post-18067348 ⭐️ PageRank Split Experiment - https://dejanmarketing.com/pagerank-split-experiment/ ⭐️ Google Patent: Ranking Documents Based on User Behavior and/or Feature Data - https://patents.google.com/patent/US9305099 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 $50K Link Click Question 00:31 BlackHat World Tests 01:49 More Links More RPM 02:41 PageRank Dilution Myth 03:38 Indexing And Link Placement 04:17 Clicks And Similarity Rules 06:10 Google Patent On Clicks 07:21 Model Weights By Probability 08:57 What This Means For SEO 10:16 Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #technicalseo #webdevelopment

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  • S1 · E1162
    September 9 · 11 min

    Google Admits They Fake Understanding Your Content

    E1162: In 2016, Google gave an internal presentation called Q4 Search All Hands. Years later, slides from that presentation surfaced during discovery in Google's antitrust trial, and one of them contains an unusually direct admission: "We do not understand documents. We fake it." Google explained that its ability to understand documents directly was minimal. Instead, it watched how people reacted to search results and learned from those responses. I break down what Google said, why this presentation still matters for SEO, and what you can actually do with this information. We cover: - The 2016 Google presentation that surfaced during the antitrust trial - Google's statement that it did not actually "understand" documents - Why Google said it watched how users reacted to documents instead - How positive and negative user reactions contribute to Google Search - Google's description of sustaining the "illusion" that it understands - Why user signals are so important for SEO - Why I rank user signals above relevance and authority - How a highly relevant page can outrank a much more authoritative website - The story of how I outranked The New York Times within five minutes with a one-year-old site - Why satisfying search intent matters more than trying to guess what Google wants - How adding a TLDR to a page improves the user experience and improves conversions - A case where adding TLDR sections increased conversions by 33% - Why giving searchers the answer above the fold reduces confusion - How to structure page titles around the exact keyword someone searched - Why repeating the searcher's language makes your result immediately feel relevant - How adding the searcher's primary goal or benefit to a title increases clicks - The three questions you should answer before creating SEO content - Why blindly asking AI to write SEO content misses what the searcher wants - How to use AI as an assistant without outsourcing the important thinking - Why matching the type of page to the search intent matters - When to use an SEO landing page versus a blog post - Why giving someone informational content when they are trying to buy something creates a bad search experience The biggest takeaway is simple: Stop obsessing over what you think Google wants. Think about the person who searched the keyword. Who are they? What do they want? What are they trying to achieve? Then create the page that gives them exactly that. ⭐️ Google 2016 Q4 Search All Hands - https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417516.pdf ⭐️ David Quaid post on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid/status/2095861936927691185 ⭐️ My explanation on 𝕏 - https://x.com/edwardeachday/status/2095115036691767658 ⭐️ Reddit: How Adding a TLDR Boosted My Conversions by 33% - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1h3qstq/how_adding_tldr_boosted_my_conversions_by_33/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Google Trial Slide Leak 01:02 We Do Not Understand Documents 01:44 SEO Implication User Reactions 02:51 When Fake Understanding Fails 03:39 User Signals Still Rule 04:07 Poll Backlinks vs Behavior 05:27 TLDR Above the Fold 06:54 Page Title Benefit Formula 07:50 Three Questions for Intent 08:55 Match Content to Intent 10:37 Wrap Up Key Takeaway The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #growthhacking #digitalmarketing

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  • S1 · E1161
    September 6 · 7 min

    LinkedIn Is Still a Blue Ocean (45,000 Views With a Dead Account)

    E1161: I break down why I still consider LinkedIn a blue ocean for organic reach, Google rankings, AI visibility, and content distribution. A listener named Marc recently started posting again after years of inactivity. Within one week, one of his posts reached 45,000+ views. That came from an account that had been dead for years. And the opportunity goes far beyond LinkedIn's feed. LinkedIn pages rank extremely well in Google. LinkedIn ranks for almost 120 million keywords and gets close to 500 million clicks per month from Google. When you put your target keyword at the beginning of a LinkedIn post, LinkedIn places that keyword in several key SEO locations: - The URL slug - The page title - The meta description If your account posts consistently and gets engagement, LinkedIn posts also get indexed quickly. I break down an example from former Google employee Pedro Dias where a LinkedIn post was cited by Google's AI Overview shortly after it was published. I also explain a test where we: - Chose a competitive keyword - Put it at the beginning of a LinkedIn post - Got the post indexed with Indexceptional - Watched it rank #1 for the target keyword within roughly 30 minutes LinkedIn doesn't just have value for traditional Google SEO either. LinkedIn has millions of pages being cited across LLMs including: - ChatGPT - Google AI Overviews - Google AI Mode That makes LinkedIn useful for both search rankings and influencing what large language models find and cite. I also cover how I use LinkedIn as part of a much larger content distribution system. The same post can be repurposed across: - LinkedIn - X - Threads - Facebook - Instagram Reels - TikTok - YouTube Shorts - Facebook Reels You can take one idea, publish it as text, turn it into video, and distribute it across multiple high-authority platforms. I explain one of my favorite ways to find short-form video ideas: look for written posts that dramatically outperform the size of the account that published them. If an account has 30,000 followers and a post gets 100,000 views, that is evidence people care about the subject. You take that post, record yourself reading it in short-form video, and distribute that video everywhere. In this episode: - Why LinkedIn is still a blue ocean - How a dead account got 45,000+ views in one week - Why daily posting compounds - How LinkedIn parasite SEO works - Where to place keywords inside LinkedIn posts - How LinkedIn posts rank in Google - How LinkedIn content gets cited by AI systems - A LinkedIn post that influenced an AI Overview - How I got a LinkedIn post ranking #1 quickly - Why I don't recommend constantly using indexers - How to repurpose one LinkedIn post across multiple platforms - How to turn viral written posts into short-form videos - Why the same content can occupy multiple positions across search and social I personally get around 100,000 to 200,000 LinkedIn impressions per week while uploading the same short-form content I already publish elsewhere. If you're creating content anyway, LinkedIn gives you another distribution channel, another SEO asset, and another place where your content is discovered by search engines and AI systems. 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 LinkedIn Blue Ocean 00:21 Proof It Still Works 01:02 LinkedIn SEO Power 01:58 Indexing And LLM Influence 03:47 Video And Repurposing 04:51 Viral Post To Video 06:08 Daily Posting Playbook 07:30 Episode Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking

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  • S1 · E1160
    September 6 · 14 min

    How To Get Free Backlinks in 2026 (Methods That Actually Work)

    E1160: You do not need to pay for backlinks to build authority in 2026. I break down a viral SEO Reddit thread about how people are getting legitimate, high-quality backlinks without buying links, spamming irrelevant directories, or wasting time on tactics Google is increasingly good at ignoring. The best part: several of the people in the thread shared specific examples, including the exact assets they created, where the links came from, and the results. We cover: - How one SEO used original research about hospitals to earn coverage from a major newspaper and multiple industry publications - How to turn public data from sources like the Census into linkable studies without collecting your own data - A home insulation campaign that used pest and population data to create a state-by-state infestation ranking and earned roughly a dozen free links - How one person scraped thousands of businesses in different industries, published the findings, and created statistics journalists and AI systems could cite - Why your research does not need to be complicated to become a useful link asset - Why transparent methodology makes data studies more credible - The difference between random directory links and legitimate foundational backlinks - Why relevant business directories can still make sense - How AI makes it much easier to build interactive linkable assets - How to get backlinks from partners, vendors, customers, awards, badges, and existing business relationships - How goodwill link building can earn links from organizations and local news publications - Why digital PR does not necessarily require paying an agency - How expert quote platforms can get you cited by journalists - Why you should not automatically assume you need more backlinks just because competitors have higher authority - Why relevance and user signals matters more than simply accumulating links - An SEO who ranks in positions 1-5 for 200+ keywords despite never buying backlinks - Why low-quality paid links can create problems beyond traditional Google rankings, including how AI systems evaluate suspicious or spammy mentions Start with legitimate foundational links. Then create things that real people, publications, businesses, and journalists genuinely have a reason to reference. That could be: - Original research - Public-data studies - Industry statistics - Free tools - Calculators - Quizzes - Awards - Expert quotes - Community projects - Partnerships - Goodwill campaigns - Digital PR You do not need thousands of backlinks. You need relevant pages targeting the right searches, strong user signals, and enough legitimate authority to compete for the keywords you actually want. ⭐️ The Reddit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1vgxe6u/how_are_you_guys_building_backlinks_after_google/ ⭐️ Ep 1037 - How One Simple Website Got 384,000 Backlinks (Linkable Assets Explained) - https://youtu.be/-1Q5HHatvoc ⭐️ Ep 1155 - He Donated a Free Roof and Got Links You Can't Buy - https://youtu.be/0aZi6sdOD-M 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Viral Backlink Dilemma 01:09 Thread Highlights Setup 01:32 Research Gets Links 02:36 Foundational Links First 03:32 Scraped Stats as Assets 05:02 Directories and Linkable Tools 06:31 Start Close to Home 07:47 Stop Overbuying Backlinks 09:52 Authority vs User Signals 11:12 Digital PR and Link Risks 14:01 Final Thanks and Goodbye The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #linkbuilding #backlinks #searchengineoptimization #seo

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  • S1 · E1159
    September 4 · 8 min

    Google's August Spam Update: 4 Sites That Got Wiped Out (Glenn Gabe Case Studies)

    E1159: Google's August 2026 Spam Update hit some sites extremely hard. I break down four case studies from Glenn Gabe showing exactly what Google's August spam update targeted, including scaled AI content, programmatic SEO with little added value, thin affiliate pages, poor user experience, and sites operating in risky niches. One of the sites lost rankings for more than 200,000 queries. Another had more than 1.5 million URLs indexed, many of which were lost. These weren't simply examples of "AI content is bad" or "programmatic SEO is bad." The common thread was scale combined with very little unique value for the searcher. In this episode: - A YMYL site that lost rankings for more than 200,000 queries after scaling programmatic pages across countries - Why the combination of programmatic content and AI-generated copy can become especially risky in YMYL niches - A massive Amazon affiliate site built largely from Amazon product data - Why simply recreating merchant information and adding affiliate links can fall under Google's Thin Affiliation policies - What Google says good affiliate sites need to add beyond information already available from the merchant - A site with more than 1.5 million indexed URLs that was hit across multiple sections - Why adding some legitimate-looking UGC doesn't necessarily save a site where most pages still provide very little additional value - How a spam update can affect an entire domain rather than only the specific pages using questionable tactics - A fourth site with more than 250,000 URLs in a risky niche that redirected users to even riskier external sites - How that site lost rankings for roughly 25,000 queries - Why the August update appears to have gone after several different forms of scaled content abuse rather than one specific tactic - Why programmatic SEO itself is not the problem - The difference between useful programmatic pages and creating hundreds of thousands of pages that mostly repeat information available elsewhere - What recovery from a spam update can look like - Lily Ray's example of a site hit by the December 2025 spam update that began recovering about five months after making major fixes - Why spam update recovery can happen outside a core update - Why removing the spam and changing what you publish going forward matters more than waiting for another Google update The important distinction is value. You can build programmatic pages. You can use AI. You can build affiliate pages. But if you're scaling hundreds of thousands or millions of URLs without giving searchers something meaningfully better, different, or more useful, you're putting the site in a very different risk category. Glenn Gabe's case studies make that extremely clear. ⭐️ Glenn Gabe's article - Google's August 2026 Spam Update - Scaled Content Abuse, AI Content, Programmatic Content, Thin Affiliates, And More [Case Studies] - https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/august-2026-google-spam-update-case-studies/ ⭐️ Ep 1141 - Can You Launch 100,000 Pages and Survive Google? - https://youtu.be/wNtiygMsRfg ⭐️ Lily Ray recovery post - https://x.com/lilyraynyc/status/2069739309075161234 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 August Spam Update Recap 00:26 How Spam Updates Work 01:00 Case 1 YMYL AI Scaling 02:04 Case 2 Thin Affiliate Pages 03:50 Case 3 Scaled Content Abuse 04:59 Case 4 Risky Redirect Scheme 05:59 Recovery Takes Months 07:05 Wrap Up 08:21 Podcast Sign Off The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking

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  • S1 · E1158
    September 3 · 15 min

    Google Says "Good SEO Is Good GEO" - Here's What They Got Wrong

    E1158: Google published an article called "Good SEO Is Good GEO," arguing that the best strategy for showing up in Google's AI search experiences is still foundational SEO. I agree with a lot of it. But some of Google's advice leaves out important parts of how SEO and GEO work today. I go through Google's article point by point and react to it in real time. Google says AI Mode and AI Overviews are built on top of the same core ranking and quality systems used by traditional Search. It also says these AI experiences retrieve information from Google's existing search index. That means traditional SEO fundamentals still matter enormously for GEO, AEO, AI SEO, or whatever you want to call it. But that does not mean every piece of Google's advice should be taken at face value. In this episode: - Why Google says "good SEO is good GEO" - Why foundational SEO remains the starting point for getting visibility in AI Mode and AI Overviews - How Google's query fan-out works and why one AI prompt can trigger multiple searches - Why search intent still matters as much as ever - Why your page title, H1, URL slug, and keyword targeting still matter - Where I disagree with Google's advice to simply "optimize for people" - Why you cannot publish website content without understanding what people are actually searching for and expect Google to figure everything out - Why unique, first-hand, non-commodity content is valuable, but still needs distribution or keyword targeting if you want people to find it - Google's claim that marketers should stop chasing inauthentic mentions - Why that claim does not match what I see happening in actual search results and LLM recommendations - How brands are getting inserted into articles already receiving citations from large language models - Why inauthentic mentions can work even though I would not recommend building a strategy around them - Why Google is right about LLMs.txt - Why I still see no compelling evidence that LLMs.txt meaningfully improves your visibility in Google or AI search - Why user experience, trustworthy design, useful images, videos, reviews, and strong copy affect both SEO and GEO - Why Merchant Center and Google Business Profile remain important for ecommerce and local businesses appearing in generative search experiences - The problem with Google telling marketers to focus on business metrics while Search Console still gives limited visibility into AI search performance - Why leads, sales, signups, and revenue ultimately matter more than new GEO metrics invented by third-party tools The biggest takeaway is simple: You do not need to throw away SEO and start over because AI search exists. The same fundamentals that make a page useful, discoverable, relevant, trustworthy, and capable of ranking in traditional Google Search also give it a strong foundation for Google's generative search experiences. But "good SEO" still means understanding keywords, understanding intent, creating content people actually want, and making sure that content can be discovered. ⭐️ Good SEO is good GEO - https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/next/v2/article/search-and-video/ai-search-era-brand-authority-strategy/ ⭐️ Pareto SEO: The 20% of SEO That Matters - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/pareto-seo/ ⭐️ Ep 1081 - Google Merchant Center Mistakes Killing Your Ecommerce Revenue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilyAv_Li1qA 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Google SEO Meets GEO 01:11 Foundational SEO Still Wins 02:07 What Helpful Really Means 02:59 Ignore New SEO Labels 03:31 Query Fan Out Explained 04:21 Pareto SEO Basics 04:33 Optimize For People Not Bots 05:06 Keyword Targeting Reality Check 05:57 Inauthentic Mentions Debate 07:54 LLMs txt Not Needed 08:28 Unique Perspective Content 09:45 Non Commodity Content Needs Keywords 10:28 Website UX Still Matters 11:42 Noisy Metrics And GSC 12:59 Merchant Center Reporting 13:38 Key Takeaways And Critiques 14:22 Wrap Up 15:12 Daily Podcast Streak Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

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  • S1 · E1157
    September 3 · 10 min

    Google Just Expanded AI Overviews: This Is What Still Gets Clicked

    E1157: Google is expanding some AI Overviews automatically, removing the need to click "Show More" and pushing traditional organic results much farther down the page. Predictably, a lot of SEOs are freaking out. I break down what Google actually changed and why I don't think businesses and publishers should panic about SEO. Google confirmed that AI Overviews can now dynamically expand when its systems believe a fuller AI answer would be useful. On those searches, users can get a much larger AI response plus the "Ask Anything" box before they ever reach the traditional blue links. I cover: - What Google changed with expanded AI Overviews - Why organic results can now appear much farther down the SERP - How Google is not simply sending every search directly into AI Mode - Why informational publishers have more reason to be concerned - Why SEO for products and services is a very different situation - The types of searches that still require people to visit a website - Why scenario-based keyword targeting continues to work - How to target people who know what they want but don't know which brand provides it - Why bottom-of-funnel SEO becomes even more important as informational searches get absorbed by AI - Why alternative pages and comparison pages influence buying decisions - Why detailed product and service documentation gives AI more information about when your business is relevant - Why AI systems can't recommend your company properly if you never explicitly explain what situations your product is for - Why useful backlinks and real brand mentions matter more than collecting links nobody sees - Why online reputation management matters for both AI recommendations and human searchers - Why building a real brand makes SEO, backlinks, AI visibility, and higher-volume rankings easier over time - Why I'm still not convinced blogging is dead - How Google Preferred Sources gives publishers another way to build repeat visibility inside Google - Why the right SEO strategy survives whether search is traditional, AI-enhanced, or eventually dominated by large language models ⭐️ Google AI Overviews Pushing Searchers Into AI Mode, Drops Show More Button - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-push-ai-mode-responses-41974.html ⭐️ Ep 1049 - The Fastest Way to Get SEO Results: Slow Is Smooth, Smooth Is Fast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGTmVZ1938 ⭐️ Ep 1074 - Blogging Isn't Dead: How Niche Blogs Still Make Money With SEO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRaNVjcnbw0 ⭐️ Ep 1156 - Google Just Gave SEOs a New Ranking Signal (Do This Now) - Preferred Sources - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv7n03rkgaM ⭐️ The conversation on Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1w1ur5u/google_making_ai_overviews_into_ai_mode_responses/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 AI Overviews Update 00:41 What Changed Exactly 02:31 Why SEO Still Crushes 03:01 Scenario Keywords That Convert 04:19 Pages That Influence AI 05:44 Holistic SEO And Branding 06:42 Blogging Is Not Dead 08:03 Preferred Sources Strategy 09:04 Stay Calm And Keep Going 09:38 Final Thoughts And Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #searchmarketing #digitalmarketing

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  • S1 · E1156
    September 1 · 10 min

    Preferred Sources Is Not Just for News Publishers (Google's Own Docs Prove It)

    E1156: Google Preferred Sources was originally introduced around news publishers, and that is still causing a lot of SEOs to dismiss it. That is a mistake. I go directly through Google's own documentation and explain why Preferred Sources now appears relevant far beyond traditional news sites. Google says any website that publishes fresh content is eligible. The feature is available globally in Top Stories and can also influence what users see in AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google Discover documentation also specifically references creator and source preferences. I also tested SaaS websites, local businesses, and ecommerce sites in Google's Preferred Sources tool. They were eligible. In this: - Why people keep saying Preferred Sources is only for news publishers - What Google's current documentation actually says - Why SaaS, ecommerce, local, and other commercial websites can be eligible - How Google does not require a news sitemap, RSS feed, or Google News Publisher Center setup - Google's statement that any website publishing fresh content is eligible - Why Google says people are twice as likely to click through to a preferred source - The significance of more than 345,000 unique sources already being selected - How Preferred Sources can affect AI Overviews, AI Mode, Top Stories, and Google Discover - Why I think Preferred Sources is an important behavioral signal - How this could matter even if Preferred Sources itself is not a direct ranking factor - Why I compare selecting a preferred source to subscribing to a YouTube channel - How increased visibility and clicks could create downstream SEO effects - How to add a Preferred Sources button to your website in five minutes - Where I placed Preferred Sources buttons on my own site - How I customized the buttons to match my website - Other placements you can test, including your header, footer, inside articles, and pop-ups - How to create a reusable global widget so you can place the button throughout your site The biggest point is simple: do not dismiss Preferred Sources because its original rollout focused on news. The current implementation is broader than that. And because adding it to a website is so easy, the potential upside makes it worth testing now rather than waiting until everyone agrees it matters. ⭐️ My article - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/google-preferred-sources-seo-ai-visibility/ ⭐️ Google Preferred Sources - test your site - https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=edwardsturm.com ⭐️ Google Developers: Help your readers find your site through preferred sources in Google Search - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/preferred-sources ⭐️ Google Developers: Discover Core Update - https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/02/discover-core-update ⭐️ Google Blog: Original High-Quality Content in Search - https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/original-high-quality-content-search/ ⭐️ Search Engine Journal: Google's Preferred Sources Is Now A Global SEO Signal - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-preferred-sources-feature-is-now-a-global-seo-signal/573591/ ⭐️ Google Developers: Preferred Sources Documentation - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/preferred-sources ⭐️ Preferred Sources button example on a blog post - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/parasite-seo-how-to-succeed-on-any-platform/#endingpreferredsource 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Preferred Sources Revisited 00:43 What Preferred Sources Does 01:44 Viral Clip And Backlash 02:40 Docs Prove Eligibility 03:30 Not Just News Sites 05:42 Potential Ranking Signal 06:54 Add The Button Fast 07:29 Design And Placement Ideas 09:19 Worth Doing Anyway 09:59 Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #contentmarketing #digitalmarketing

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  • S1 · E1155
    August 31 · 11 min

    He Donated a Free Roof and Got Links You Can't Buy

    E1155: A roofer in South Florida donated a free roof through Habitat for Humanity. The charity wrote about it and linked to his business. Then a local news station picked up the story, his Facebook post was shared more than 200 times, and one act of goodwill produced the kind of links and attention that are extremely difficult to buy. That is goodwill link building. I break down how businesses can do genuinely useful things for people, nonprofits, organizations, and other companies, then turn that work into backlinks, partnerships, mentions, and press. The important part most businesses miss is simple: ask for the link. Businesses already sponsor youth sports teams, donate products, support nonprofits, volunteer their services, and contribute to community projects. But because they are not thinking about SEO, they often get a logo or plain-text mention and never ask for a backlink. I cover real examples and practical ways to use this strategy across SaaS, e-commerce, and local services. In this episode: - How a donated roof turned into a nonprofit backlink, local press, and 200+ social shares - Why sponsorships and donations frequently create easy backlink opportunities - The two-minute follow-up email most businesses never send - How Lily Ray generated a large number of links through a pro bono marketing project during COVID - How SaaS companies can give free accounts to nonprofits and earn relevant partner links - How to get links from companies whose products you already use - Why publicly saying something positive about another company can lead to a case study or customer-story backlink - How e-commerce brands can donate products to relevant causes - Why recurring donations can produce links from multiple pages over time - How returned or lightly damaged inventory can become a link-building asset instead of waste - How e-commerce businesses can donate their expertise, not just their products - How local service businesses can provide free work to nonprofits or newly opened businesses - How disaster preparation and disaster response can create legitimate local press opportunities - Why third-party tips to journalists often work better than pitching your own company - How one goodwill project can produce backlinks, social shares, partnerships, and press at the same time The bigger idea is that backlinks work best when they look like real marketing. Instead of inventing artificial reasons for websites to link to you, do something that actually gives another organization a reason to mention you. Support something meaningful. Give away something useful. Solve a problem. Share somebody else's business. Donate your expertise. Then ask for the backlink. ⭐️ Bodhi- Local SEO's roofer post and comments - https://x.com/irentdumpsters/status/2092371437365461368 ⭐️ Lily Ray's post - https://x.com/lilyraynyc/status/2092672103283613939 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Goodwill Link Building Intro 00:34 Habitat Roof Story 01:44 Ask For The Link 03:16 SaaS Goodwill Ideas 05:11 Ecommerce Donation Plays 07:21 Local Services Givebacks 07:58 Turn Good Deeds Into Press 10:08 Student Results Example 11:20 Daily Podcast Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #linkbuilding #backlinks

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  • S1 · E1153
    August 30 · 12 min

    Google Can Detect Your AI Content. Here's What Happens Next.

    E1153: Breaking down the debate around AI-written SEO content, Google's ability to identify machine-generated text, and whether AI detection could eventually become a meaningful part of Google's search and training systems. Google's John Mueller recently liked a LinkedIn post arguing that Google may be moving toward an algorithm designed to target all AI content. That comes after the August spam update, which many site owners reported hit AI-heavy websites particularly hard. But detecting AI content and penalizing AI content are two very different things. I also look at an argument from SEO, Dan Petrovic, who explains why Google has little reason to automatically remove content simply because AI was involved in creating it. Google already has sophisticated systems for evaluating content quality, usefulness, and user behavior. In this episode: - Why John Mueller liking a post about an AI content crackdown caught my attention - What the August spam update may tell us about Google's treatment of AI-heavy websites - How easily Google may be able to detect AI-generated text - Why AI detection does not automatically mean an SEO penalty - How Google could use AI detection as one signal among many - Why user behavior may matter more than whether a human or AI wrote the first draft - How Google can use post-click behavior, session activity, and other signals to evaluate usefulness - Why low-quality content existed long before ChatGPT and other LLMs - How AI-generated content could be treated differently in search results versus AI training data - Three possible ways Google could handle AI-generated text going forward - Why Google might allow AI content to rank while excluding some of it from model training - Why AI content could receive less weight rather than being completely ignored - How user-generated content from customers, Reddit, reviews, and other sources could become increasingly important - Why I am still using AI for SEO content - The difference between using AI as a writing assistant and publishing completely AI-generated articles - Why short-prompt, publish-without-editing AI content is a bad SEO strategy - How we use AI for ideation, articulation, summarization, and heavily edited drafts - Why satisfying search intent still matters regardless of how the content was created - Why high-intent SEO remains one of the areas where I believe AI can be especially useful My view is that AI content is not going to disappear from Google Search simply because Google can identify it. Google has much more information available than authorship alone. It can evaluate whether a page answers the query, whether users find it useful, and whether the website is creating something people actually want. That means the goal should not be to make AI content undetectable. The goal should be to use AI carefully, edit heavily, add real information, satisfy search intent quickly, and create pages that deserve to rank. For us, AI remains a writing assistant rather than a replacement for the entire content process. ⭐️ Ep 1140 - Claude Is Watermarking Everything It Writes. Google Doesn't Have the Key - https://youtu.be/U4WKswNBr0s ⭐️ Kristine Schachinger on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kschachinger-seo_i-said-it-a-couple-months-ago-and-im-going-share-7498052042116976640-re-G/ ⭐️ Dan Petrovic: No AI Penalty - https://dejan.ai/blog/ai-penalty/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 John Mueller Likes AI Warning 00:54 August Spam Update Fallout 01:21 Can Google Detect AI 01:31 EU AI Act Watermarking 02:48 What If Detection Is Cheap 03:18 Dan Petrovic Takeaways 05:07 Detection vs Quality Signals 07:41 Three Future Scenarios 09:23 How To Use AI Safely 11:43 Wrap The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #aiseo #digitalmarketing

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  • S1 · E1154
    August 29 · 47 min

    Stop Panicking About Google's Goto Redirects. Build Your Own Tools Instead.

    E1154: Google's new goto redirects have a lot of SEOs worried that rank tracking is about to become less accurate, more expensive, or much harder to do. David Quaid joins me to break down what is actually happening, what it means for tools like Semrush and Ahrefs, and why the answer may be for SEOs to start building more of their own tools. Google's goto redirects add another step between the search result and the destination URL. That creates problems for companies that scrape Google at scale because they may now need to follow redirects instead of simply extracting destination URLs from the search results. That matters because a huge amount of SEO software depends on collecting SERP data. David and I discuss: - What Google's goto redirects actually are - Why Google may have introduced them - How they affect rank trackers and SERP scraping - Why exact ranking URLs may become harder to collect - Whether tools can still reliably track ranking domains - Why rank tracking data should not always be treated as exact - How Google Search Console can provide a second source of ranking data - Why SEOs may need to combine SERP data with Search Console - Why David believes most SERP tools are still largely usable - The problems with checking rankings only once per day - Why Google's changes could increase data collection costs - Whether Semrush and Ahrefs can adapt - Why smaller SEO tools and open-source projects may benefit - OpenSEO and the growing number of self-hosted SEO tools - Why SEOs should consider building internal tools - Using AI coding tools to work with Search Console data - Why Search Console data may become more valuable - How Bing Webmaster Tools could become more important - Why SEO agencies should pay attention to their own data instead of depending entirely on third-party reports - How ranking data relates to traffic, leads, and client reporting - What happens when a rank tracker says you rank somewhere but a manual search shows something different - Keyword cannibalization and how David uses Search Console to identify it - Why David cares more about ranking domains than exact URLs in many rank-tracking reports - Google's ongoing fight against scraping and automated search activity - Whether these changes are aimed at SEO tools, SERP APIs, OpenAI, or all three - Why Google may be making click-through manipulation harder - Whether OpenAI is building its own search index - The changing relationship between Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other search systems - Why SEO is still worth doing - Why the next generation of SEO tools may come from individual developers and small teams David's main point is simple: SEOs should not panic. Rank tracking is not disappearing. Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, SERP data, internal reporting, and custom tools can increasingly be combined to create your own view of what is happening. For SEOs who are willing to build, test, and work directly with their own data, these changes may create more opportunities than problems. We also discuss the SEO Tool Dev community on Reddit, where developers and SEOs can share scripts, extensions, tools, experiments, and new approaches to SEO data. ⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid ⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/ ⭐️ David Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid ⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/ ⭐️ SEO Tool Dev Subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO_tool_dev/ ⭐️ OpenSEO 𝕏 post - https://x.com/ihteshamali/status/2093319473914921327 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Goto Redirects Panic 01:11 What Goto Redirects Are 02:09 Scraping War With SERP APIs 07:28 Rank Trackers Break Down 08:43 Future Tools Using GSC 11:51 Open Source SEO Tools 14:30 Short Term Survival Tips 18:09 Costs Rising For SEO Data 19:14 Consulting Shift And Expertise 23:27 Fixing SEO Tool Reporting 26:47 Tracking Domains Not URLs 29:12 Cannibalization Fixes 32:13 CTR Manipulation Crackdown 33:44 Google Versus AI Search 36:27 LLMs And Junk Content 39:41 SERP Tools Future Costs 42:58 Build Your Own SEO Tools 45:27 SEO Tool Dev Subreddit 46:50 Podcast Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #technicalseo #digitalmarketing

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  • S1 · E1152
    August 28 · 1 hr 12 min

    Google Analytics Is Hiding Your AI Traffic (And Google Can Detect Your AI Content)

    E1152: Google Analytics is one of the most widely used analytics platforms on the web, but there is a growing category of traffic it was never really designed to help you understand: bots, AI crawlers, and AI agents. I sit down with analytics consultant Jason Packer, author of Google Analytics Alternatives, to talk about what GA4 is measuring, what it can miss, and how the rise of AI is changing both analytics and SEO. We get into AI companies crawling the web, the possibility of companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic developing their own web indexes, and what that could mean if AI platforms increasingly rely on their own infrastructure rather than traditional search indexes. We also discuss a separate issue that matters to anyone using AI for SEO: detecting AI-generated content. Jason explains current approaches to identifying AI-generated text and images, including watermarking systems such as SynthID, classifiers, and emerging standards around identifying AI-generated material. We also discuss whether Google can detect AI-generated content and why simply asking whether content was written by AI may be the wrong question. The bigger question is whether the content is useful, accurate, distinctive, and reviewed by a human. Topics covered: - What traffic Google Analytics 4 may be missing - Why GA4 intentionally filters much bot traffic - Why AI crawlers and AI agents create a new analytics problem - The difference between human visitors, traditional bots, AI crawlers, and AI agents - Why identifying AI traffic from user agents is difficult - What Cloudflare data can tell us about the growth of AI crawling - Whether OpenAI and Anthropic could build their own web indexes - How an AI-owned search index could change SEO - Why ranking for an LLM may work differently from ranking in Google - Whether early AI search systems could create new opportunities for SEOs - Hidden GA4 features and reports that many users overlook - How modeled users can affect what you see inside GA4 - Using device-based reporting identity to better understand your analytics data - Creating custom GA4 insights and anomaly alerts - Using Explore and User Explorer in GA4 - Where GA4 is genuinely powerful - Why GA4 may not be the right default analytics platform for every website - Google Analytics alternatives including PostHog, Amplitude, Piwik PRO, Plausible, Fathom, and others - Whether it makes sense to build your own analytics platform with AI coding tools - How AI-generated text and images can be detected - Google SynthID and AI watermarking - Why interoperability between AI detection systems matters - Whether Google can identify AI-generated SEO content - The risks of publishing AI content at scale - Why human review still matters when using AI for SEO - How AI can be used without sacrificing usefulness, accuracy, or brand voice The conversation ultimately comes back to a problem SEOs are going to have to understand: the web is no longer being visited only by humans and traditional search-engine crawlers. AI systems are increasingly crawling, retrieving, processing, and potentially indexing web content. At the same time, publishers are using those same systems to produce more content. That creates two important questions for SEO: How do you measure AI traffic that conventional analytics tools may filter or fail to identify? And how should you use AI to create content when search engines and AI platforms are becoming increasingly capable of identifying how that content was produced? ⭐️ Jason Packer's website, Quantable - https://quantable.com ⭐️ Jason Packer's book, Google Analytics Alternatives: A Comprehensive Guide - http://gaalternatives.guide ⭐️ Jason Packer on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhpacker/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Meet Jason Packer 01:25 GA4 Hidden Insights 02:11 Modeled Users Explained 06:52 Custom Insights Alerts 09:12 Explore Reports Tricks 12:27 Learning GA4 Fast 14:39 Ask Advisor Critique 17:21 GA4 Basics For Beginners 21:40 Attribution And UA Nostalgia 25:19 What Traffic GA4 Misses 28:48 AI Crawlers And Analytics 31:04 Cloudflare Radar Web Crawling 33:05 AI Indexes And SEO Future 38:52 Spam In New Indexes 40:35 GA4 Alternatives Framework 41:20 Best Product Analytics Tools 43:11 Simpler Web Analytics Picks 46:10 Vibe Coding Analytics Risks 48:38 What Analytics They Use 50:19 Detecting AI Text Watermarks 52:42 EU AI Act And Detection APIs 56:09 SynthID Limits And SlopGuard 01:02:40 AI SEO Best Practices 01:07:15 Human Writing With AI Assist 01:11:47 Podcast Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #digitalmarketing #googleanalytics #searchengineoptimization #seo

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  • S1 · E1151
    August 28 · 22 min

    Google's Goto Redirect Broke Rank Tracking. Moz Explains What Happens Now.

    E1151: Google has started routing search-result links through new google.com/goto redirects, masking the final destination URL for logged-out users. That sounds like a small technical change. For rank trackers, SERP scrapers, SEO tools, and marketers who depend on Google search data, it creates a much bigger problem. I'm joined by Jonathan Berthold from Moz to break down what Google changed, why rank tracking is being affected, how SEO platforms are responding, and what marketers should expect next. We also get into the larger fight happening behind the scenes. Google has been making it harder to collect search results at scale, from the removal of the num=100 parameter to these new Goto redirects. One possible explanation discussed in the episode is that Google is making it more difficult and expensive for AI companies and other automated systems to collect its search data. The problem is that SEO tools rely on some of the same underlying access. We cover: - What Google's new google.com/goto redirects actually do - Why the destination URL is now hidden in Google search results - Why this creates problems for rank tracking software - How Moz is handling the change - Why other SEO platforms have had to adjust their systems - Whether simply following each redirect solves the problem - How additional requests could increase the cost and complexity of collecting SERP data - Why agencies and consultants may see temporary changes in ranking reports - What SEOs should tell clients if their reporting starts looking different - How this could affect competitive analysis and other workflows that rely on SERP data - Why AI workflows that analyze Google results could also be affected - How this compares with Google's removal of the num=100 search parameter - Whether Google Search Console could see downstream effects - Why Jonathan expects SEO tools to adapt rather than rank tracking disappearing - The possibility that Google extends these redirects beyond logged-out searches - What this means for the continuing competition between Google, OpenAI, and other AI companies - Why AI companies have an incentive to develop their own indexes and alternative data sources - Why rankings are ultimately a directional metric rather than the final measure of SEO success - Why revenue, leads, and sales from organic search still matter more than individual ranking positions Jonathan's main advice for SEOs is simple: be adaptable. Google can change not only its ranking algorithms, but also the infrastructure that SEO tools use to collect and interpret search results. Rank trackers adapted after the num=100 change, and Jonathan expects the industry to find ways to deal with Goto redirects as well. The immediate question isn't whether SEO is dead. It's how much these changes affect the reliability, complexity, and cost of measuring search performance. And the longer-term question is bigger: as Google protects access to its search data and AI companies build their own sources of information, what does SEO measurement look like next? ⭐️ Jonathan Berthold on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanberthold/ ⭐️ Jonathan Berthold on 𝕏: https://x.com/j_bertho ⭐️ Moz (my affiliate link): https://edwardsturm.com/refer/moz/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Goto Redirect Panic 00:48 What Changed In SERPs 02:47 Why Google Did It 05:15 Costs And Workarounds 07:37 SEO Tool Fallout 10:10 Beyond Rank Tracking 12:08 Fix Timeline And Pricing 14:33 OpenAI Index And Yelp 16:31 Search Console Volatility 17:26 Adaptability Takeaways 19:33 Does SEO Still Work 21:26 Wrap Up And Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #seoagency

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  • S1 · E1150
    August 27 · 1 hr 35 min

    GEO vs SEO: James Dooley Says Only 1% of SEOs Can Actually Do It

    E1150: James Dooley and David Quaid return to debate one of the biggest questions in SEO right now: is GEO a separate discipline, or is it just SEO under a new name? James says he used to agree that GEO was simply SEO with a different label. Then his own team changed his mind. He now runs a separate GEO/AEO department because people who can rank websites #1 in Google can still struggle to get brands cited in ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode and other LLM-driven results. David pushes back. His argument is that most of the work required for GEO still comes back to strong SEO: understanding query fan-out, creating the right pages, earning links, building authority, controlling more of the search results and getting third-party sites to corroborate what a brand says about itself. The debate eventually lands on a more interesting point: James believes only about 1% of decent SEOs can actually do GEO well because there are additional layers beyond traditional website SEO. In this episode: - Why James created a separate GEO/AEO department after initially believing GEO was just SEO - Why ranking #1 in Google does not automatically mean you will be cited by ChatGPT or appear in AI Overviews - James's argument that GEO is closer to SEO plus online reputation management - David's case that GEO tactics are still fundamentally SEO tactics applied across more surfaces - Why third-party corroboration matters for AI visibility - How Yelp, TripAdvisor, Clutch, DesignRush, G2, Capterra, Reddit and other sites can influence what AI systems see about a brand - Why reviews, awards, case studies and brand reputation matter when a buyer asks AI to choose between two companies - How query fan-out changes the keywords and pages SEOs need to think about - Why James says GEO involves different competitors, tracking, KPIs and reporting - How parasite SEO, supplementary websites and exact-match domains can be used to control more of the information around a brand - The difference between tactics designed to move Google rankings and tactics designed specifically to increase AI citations - The role of press releases, social distribution and third-party mentions in getting faster AI visibility - James's fastest approach to AI visibility and what he considers more sustainable long-term work - Why building a defined entity, reviews, awards, knowledge panels and consistent third-party references matters over time - Why some GEO agencies may simply be weak SEO agencies using a new label - How businesses should evaluate a GEO agency before spending serious money - Why enterprise companies are moving larger parts of SEO, branding and traditional marketing budgets into GEO - Whether SEOs should start selling GEO even if they believe the underlying work is still SEO James and David disagree on where SEO ends and GEO begins, but they agree on one important point: a GEO provider who cannot understand and execute SEO is unlikely to be very good at GEO. If you work in SEO, run an agency, manage a brand, or are trying to understand how ChatGPT and AI search are changing search visibility, this episode lays out both sides of the argument with specific examples and tactics. ⭐️ James Dooley's website - https://jamesdooley.com/ ⭐️ James Dooley on 𝕏 - https://x.com/james_dooley ⭐️ James Dooley on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameszdooley/ ⭐️ James Dooley on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jameszdooley/ ⭐️ James Dooley on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/james.dooley1/ ⭐️ James Dooley on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@JamesDooley ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/ ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 GEO vs SEO Debate Setup 00:45 Why AI Visibility Differs 02:25 GEO as SEO Plus ORM 05:17 Market Confusion and SEO Is Dead Claims 07:15 Budgets Branding and Off Page Proof 11:55 Can You Do GEO Without SEO 13:27 Yelp Reviews and Local Listings 22:05 Tools KPIs and Claim Frame Prove 26:15 SERP APIs and Query Fan Out Shifts 28:20 Creativity Outranking Listicles 32:54 Black Hat SEO vs LLM Poisoning 39:04 GEO Hype Emotional Marketing 43:17 Big Budgets and Boardroom Criteria 47:37 AEO Off Page Signals 49:12 Vetting GEO Agencies 51:18 Independent Advisor Panels 53:19 Budgets Shift To GEO 55:28 Fast AI Visibility Plays 59:36 Pop Under Traffic Boosts 01:00:50 Sustainable Entity Building 01:01:50 Query Fanout Hacks 01:07:14 Experimentation Mindset 01:10:36 King Of SEO Case Study 01:14:18 Temporal Semantics Explained 01:21:46 Common Crawl Training Test 01:30:58 Final AI Visibility Takeaways The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #seo

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  • S1 · E1149
    August 26 · 1 hr

    How to Get a Google Knowledge Panel in 3 Months (Jason Barnard)

    E1149: Jason Barnard breaks down how to get a Google Knowledge Panel for yourself or your business in as little as three months. We cover why clarity and consistency are the foundation of entity SEO and how Google decides whether it understands who you are. Jason explains what an "Entity Home" is, why your About page matters, and how to structure it for both humans and search engines. We go through the platforms new brands should consider, including LinkedIn, Crunchbase, The Org, social profiles, and review sites. Jason also explains why linking between your website and these profiles creates an "infinite loop of self-corroboration" that can strengthen Google's confidence in your entity. We discuss SameAs schema, common schema mistakes, website architecture, pillar pages, navigation, and why your homepage should usually focus on your brand rather than targeting a keyword. Jason shares how to write entity descriptions that are easier for Google and AI systems to understand, including the importance of semantic triples, related entities, and removing ambiguity. We also get into why third-party mentions, podcasts, press coverage, and other external sources can make a Knowledge Panel more stable and authoritative. Jason explains why Knowledge Panels matter beyond Google Search as people increasingly use ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI systems to research brands and individuals. Finally, he walks through the Kalicube tools and practical steps you can use to build, track, and strengthen your presence in Google's Knowledge Graph. Jason Barnard coined Brand SERP in 2012, the search results for your own name, your online business card. He coined Entity Home in 2015, the single page where a person or company officially lives online and where Google goes to resolve who you actually are. He coined Answer Engine Optimization in 2017, before the answer engines had arrived. Entity SEO didn't catch up to him; he was there first, and the terminology proves it. Jason's universal three-step process for earning a Knowledge Panel on your Brand SERP: 1. Be clear on the Entity Home. 2. Keep the facts consistent across every profile you control. 3. Link out to the corroboration that proves them. Do those three in that order, and the Knowledge Panel is the machine agreeing with you. ⭐️ Jason's Entity Home - https://jasonbarnard.com Kalicube Pro tools from the episode: ⭐️ Knowledge Graph Explorer - https://kalicube.pro/tools/knowledge-graph-explorer ⭐️ Copywriting Sandbox - https://kalicube.pro/tools/google-copywriting-analyzer ⭐️ Trusted Sources Tool - https://kalicube.pro/tools/trusted-sources ⭐️ Person Schema Generator - https://kalicube.pro/tools/schema-markup-generator-person ⭐️ Organization Schema Generator - https://kalicube.pro/tools/schema-markup-generator-organization ⭐️ Free Tools Hub - https://kalicube.pro/tools/free-resources 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Knowledge Panel Basics 00:15 Entity Home Clarity 02:08 What Is An Entity 04:32 Search Volume Myths 06:15 Common Setup Mistakes 08:20 Corroboration Links 09:48 Platforms To Register 11:22 Future Of Knowledge Panels 14:15 About Home Media Kit 16:18 Pillar Pages Navigation 19:04 Site Architecture Rules 22:04 SameAs Schema Tips 23:28 Transparency And Trust 25:37 Brand Naming Strategy 28:59 Disambiguation Challenges 30:43 CTR Not A Factor 31:05 Notability Relevancy Confidence 32:27 Modular Platform Descriptions 35:19 Do the Reasoning for AI 37:22 Write a Clear Executive Summary 40:03 Avoid Ambiguity and Capitalization 43:52 Third Party Proof Matters 48:25 Why Knowledge Panels Win 53:11 When Panels Don't Show 56:57 Kalicube Steps and Wrap The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #entityseo #seo #searchmarketing

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  • S1 · E1147
    August 25 · 15 min

    Why Your SEO Traffic Is Declining (The Reason Nobody Wants to Admit)

    E1147: Your organic traffic is declining. Your rankings are getting more volatile. Pages that have been stable for months or years are suddenly moving down. Before blaming a Google update, backlinks, AI Overviews, or some mysterious algorithm change, look at the simplest explanation: Your pages might not be satisfying search intent well enough. I break down the most common reasons SEO traffic decline and what to do. First, not every traffic decline matters. SEO is volatile. Rankings go up and down. What matters is the overall trend and, more importantly, which pages are losing traffic. Losing low-value top-of-funnel informational clicks is very different from losing rankings on pages that generate leads, sales, signups, or discovery calls. I cover: - How to tell normal SEO volatility from a decline you should worry about - Why you should separate top-of-funnel traffic losses from bottom-of-funnel losses - Why search intent is one of the first things I check when rankings decline - How too much fluff above the fold can hurt a page - Why targeting keywords with conflicting intent on the same page creates problems - A real example where fixing search intent stabilized a company's declining search visibility - Why sites that look obviously AI-generated may create a new user-trust problem - How competitors entering your SERPs can cause previously stable rankings to move - Why competitors aggressively building backlinks can shake up rankings - How tracking individual keywords makes diagnosing declines easier - Why you should check whether losses are isolated to a specific subfolder or happening sitewide - Why I prefer organizing SEO sites into logical subfolders instead of using completely flat architecture - How unrelated content can confuse what Google understands your site to be about - When pruning or noindexing unrelated content can make sense - Why outdated content may be the entire problem - How keyword cannibalization can cause multiple pages on your site to compete with each other - Technical mistakes that can suddenly destroy visibility - Accidental robots.txt blocks and noindex tags - Staging sites accidentally getting indexed - Plugins generating huge numbers of meaningless pages - Programmatic SEO projects that can damage an entire site - Why you should still check Google Search Console for manual actions I also talk about something I think SEOs will have to pay much more attention to: AI-looking websites. Even if the information is good, users may increasingly distrust a site that immediately looks like it was generated by Claude or another AI tool. If searchers have repeatedly encountered generic, fluffy, or hallucinated AI content, the appearance of your site itself could affect whether they stick around long enough to see that your content is actually useful. The biggest takeaway from this episode is simple: Before looking for a complicated explanation for declining SEO traffic, look at your pages as a searcher. - Are you answering what they searched for? - Are you answering it quickly? - Is the answer obvious above the fold? - Are you targeting one clear intent? - Would you be satisfied if Google sent you to this page? Sometimes you already know the answer. You just don't want to admit it. ⭐️ Ep 1141 - Can You Launch 100,000 Pages and Survive Google? - https://youtu.be/wNtiygMsRfg ⭐️ Ep 1030 - Keyword Cannibalization: Why Your SEO Pages Compete (And How to Fix It) - https://youtu.be/n3jrXrau6kE ⭐️ Darren Shaw's LinkedIn Post - https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7495990440530272256/ ⭐️ My 𝕏 post - https://x.com/edwardeachday/status/2091817392372400392 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Traffic Drops Explained 00:39 Assess What Matters 01:26 Top of Funnel Reality Check 02:14 When To Take Action 02:46 Search Intent Fixes 05:21 AI Slop Trust Issues 08:25 SERP Shifts And Links 09:52 Site Structure Diagnostics 11:56 Cannibalization And Tech 12:52 Do Stable SEO The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #seo #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing #seopodcast

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  • S1 · E1148
    August 25 · 1 hr 17 min

    Everyone's Overcomplicating AI Visibility (Just Do Bottom-of-Funnel SEO)

    E1148: Everyone is talking about GEO, AEO, fan-out queries, schema, Reddit, digital PR, Wikipedia mentions, and dozens of other ways to get recommended by ChatGPT and other AI systems. Devesh Khanal of Grow and Convert thinks most companies are skipping the obvious place to start: bottom-of-funnel SEO. Devesh shares what Grow and Convert is seeing across clients after years of publishing detailed, product-focused content. Their approach is straightforward: identify the searches closest to a buying decision, create dedicated pages that genuinely answer those searches, explain the product in enough detail for both people and LLMs to understand it, and build from there. We get into: - Why bottom-of-funnel SEO should come before most GEO tactics - The three keyword buckets Devesh uses: category keywords, comparisons/alternatives, and jobs-to-be-done keywords - Why search volume is often the wrong way to prioritize keywords - How sales calls, customer support, reviews, and customer questions can reveal better topics - Why you probably do not need to predict or target individual fan-out queries - What Grow and Convert found when studying the SEO footprint behind ChatGPT citations - Why Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT should not be treated as if they work the same way - How detailed content on your own site gives LLMs information about your use cases, customers, pain points, features, and products - Why case studies can matter for AI visibility even when they are not targeting an SEO keyword - How self-promotional "best" and "alternatives" articles can work without pretending to be neutral third-party reviews - The difference between transparent product promotion and content that creates an intent mismatch - Why ClickUp-style mass publishing is different from producing a handful of carefully written commercial pages - The risks of publishing thousands of lightly edited AI-generated pages - A company that published 25,000 AI pages and got to the point where journalists could not find the company by searching its own brand name - Why Devesh still builds backlinks to bottom-of-funnel pages - Why topical relevance matters more than collecting random links just to raise DR - Why links directly to the page you want to rank can matter more than general homepage links - How ranking bottom-of-funnel pages can indirectly create more third-party mentions when writers and researchers discover your brand Devesh also shares a simple exercise to do this week: make a list of the 10-20 most obvious searches someone would use when looking for a product like yours, then check whether you have a dedicated URL targeting each one. If you do not, that is probably a better place to start than worrying about schema tweaks or trying to reverse-engineer every possible AI prompt. ⭐️ Devesh Khanal's website, Grow and Convert - https://www.growandconvert.com/ ⭐️ Devesh Khanal on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/deveshkhanal/ ⭐️ Devesh Khanal on 𝕏 - https://x.com/deveshkhanal ⭐️ Grow and Convert Marketing Show on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-grow-and-convert-marketing-show/id1652941589 ⭐️ Grow and Convert Marketing Show on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1CFauYp4GVXaMVNN9h9yxH ⭐️ Devesh Writes on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@deveshwrites 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Episode Pitch Setup 01:40 What AI Visibility Looks Like 03:38 Skip Top of Funnel Prompts 06:21 Self Promotional Listicles 08:01 ClickUp Cautionary Tale 08:59 Do It Honestly 12:11 Scale Frequency And Stability 15:19 Why This Works In LLMs 17:23 Invisible Prompts Personalization 24:05 Keyword Buckets And Formats 29:27 Common Mistakes AI Content 32:30 Alternatives Pages Breakdown 35:54 SERP Analysis And Brand View 39:35 Positioning With Honesty 40:34 Listicles Without CTA Spam 40:56 Transparent Best Of Pages 42:41 Shopping Intent Explained 43:56 Branded Review Sites 47:58 AI Content Shadow Drops 50:12 Site Architecture Priorities 52:01 Bottom of Funnel Keyword Framework 56:29 LLM Visibility Buckets 01:03:46 Fan Out Query Myths 01:06:54 Backlinks And Citation Outreach 01:12:47 This Week Action Plan 01:13:59 Shaping The LLM Narrative 01:16:01 Wrap Up And Where To Find The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

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  • S1 · E1146
    August 24 · 10 min

    Get Free Niche Backlinks by Interviewing Small Bloggers

    E1146: Get free niche backlinks by interviewing small bloggers, business owners, and other people in your industry. This is a link-building method we're testing. Instead of cold emailing website owners and asking them for backlinks, start by giving them a reason to know you. Interview them on a podcast. Small bloggers and business owners are often much easier to book than established journalists or large creators. Many have never been interviewed before. Give them a good podcast experience, build an actual relationship, stay in touch, and you will have a natural opportunity to earn relevant backlinks. I explain exactly how the strategy works. You'll learn: - How partnerships and industry relationships can produce some of the most natural backlinks - How a podcast can be used for link building instead of traditional lead generation - Why you should start by interviewing small niche bloggers and businesses - How to identify potential guests with websites that could realistically link to you - Why organizing prospects by domain authority or domain rating can help you work your way up - How smaller podcast guests can help establish credibility before you approach bigger bloggers and journalists - Why you shouldn't ask for a backlink during the interview - How to stay in touch with guests through social media after an episode - Why repeated exposure can make a future backlink request much easier - How to ask a former guest to write about your business or list you as a partner - How social media posts can be offered in exchange for coverage without creating a reciprocal-link pattern - Why I would avoid building a large number of obvious reciprocal links - How some guests may write about you without being asked - How to use guest episodes to promote your business to people in your niche - Why you should put your business promo within the first four minutes of a guest episode - How to find potential podcast guests without relying entirely on cold email or DMs - How this strategy can eventually help you build relationships with larger bloggers, journalists, and publications The basic process is simple: 1. Find small blogs and businesses in your niche or adjacent niches. 2. Prioritize people who actively run a website. 3. Invite them onto your podcast. 4. Give them a good interview without immediately asking for anything. 5. Connect with them on social media and stay in touch. 6. Continue publishing so they repeatedly see your work. 7. After a few weeks or a month, approach about an article, partnership mention, or other relevant coverage. 8. As your podcast builds credibility, begin inviting guests with larger and more authoritative websites. Done well, you're not only building backlinks. You're building a network of bloggers, business owners, creators, and eventually journalists in your industry. Those relationships lead to links, partnerships, introductions, coverage, and opportunities that a standard backlink outreach email won't create. I also discuss how I produce guest podcast episodes, how I use social media content alongside the podcast, and how you can use AIPodcastMatcher to find people interested in appearing as guests. ⭐️ AIPodcastMatcher - https://aipodcastmatcher.com/ ⭐️ How I Produce Guest Podcasts in 90 Minutes (That Help Me Rank in Google) - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/how-i-produce-guest-podcasts-in-90-minutes/ ⭐️ How to Get the Highest-Quality Backlinks Possible by Starting a Niche Podcast - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/highest-quality-backlinks-podcast/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Backlink Method Intro 00:18 Why Partnerships Win 01:05 Podcast Lead Gen Basics 02:03 Turn Podcasts Into Links 03:06 Find Targets And Level Up 03:54 Run Great Guest Interviews 04:39 Ask For The Backlink 05:59 Avoid Reciprocal Link Traps 06:37 Tools And Outreach Setup 07:53 Scale Authority And Brand 09:52 Episode Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #seo #linkbuilding #backlinks #searchengineoptimization

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  • S1 · E1145
    August 23 · 8 min

    Google Just Gave SEOs a New Ranking Signal (Do This Now) - Preferred Sources

    E1145: Google just gave SEOs a new feature that could change how publishers build visibility across Search, Discover, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. I break down Google Preferred Sources, how it works, why it matters, and why publishers should pay attention before everyone starts using it. Google Preferred Sources allows users to choose publishers they want to see more often in Google Search experiences. These selections become a user-controlled signal that works alongside Google's ranking systems. I cover: - What Google Preferred Sources is and why Google launched it - Why this could become an important signal for publishers and SEOs - How Preferred Sources connects with Google Discover, Top Stories, AI Overviews, and AI Mode - How to check if your website is eligible to appear as a preferred source - How to add a Preferred Source button to your website - Where to place the button to maximize the chances that readers select your site - How I customized my own Preferred Source buttons using WordPress and Elementor - Why this is not just for news publishers, but can also apply to brands with company blogs and product pages - How domain-level and subdomain-level sites are eligible while subdirectories are not - How SEOs can think about this as an audience-building strategy Google's documentation says Preferred Sources selections do not override relevance. Your content still needs to match user interests and provide value, but this gives publishers a new way to encourage users to tell Google they want more from their website. This is one of the few features where publishers can directly encourage users to create a signal around their website. If you run a website, publish content, work in SEO, or care about Google Discover and AI search visibility, this is something you should understand. I also share how to implement this on a website, where I would place the buttons, and why I think many publishers will overlook this opportunity. ⭐️ Search Engine Journal: Google's Preferred Sources Feature Is Now a Global SEO Signal - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-preferred-sources-feature-is-now-a-global-seo-signal/573591/ ⭐️ Google Developers: Preferred Sources Documentation - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/preferred-sources ⭐️ Compact Keywords testimonial insert - Rank & Rent SEO: How Ippei Built 130 Sites - and Made $240K From One 15-Hour Website - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muwrS4Dh_R8 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Preferred Sources Breakthrough 00:17 How the Feature Works 01:10 Old Button vs New Popup 02:51 Designing High Converting Buttons 03:41 Where to Place the CTA 04:29 Setup Guide With Claude 05:21 Discover and Ranking Limits 06:07 AI Mode and Global Impact 06:39 Domain Eligibility Rules 07:18 SEO That Makes Money The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #ecommerce

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  • S1 · E1144
    August 22 · 17 min

    Google's August Spam Update Just Crushed Scaled Content - SaaS Is Winning

    E1144: Google's August 2026 spam update has officially finished rolling out, and we're seeing clear patterns in who got hit, who recovered, and who is winning. The update launched August 18 and completed just three days later on August 21. But the volatility started well before Google officially announced it. Throughout August, sites were reporting major ranking swings, sudden traffic losses, and unexpected recoveries. One of the biggest patterns: scaled content sites are getting crushed. I break down what happened during the August spam update using real sites, Google Search Console screenshots, Reddit posts, Ahrefs & Semrush data, and examples being shared throughout the SEO community. Topics covered: - How the August spam update started affecting sites before its official August 18 launch - Sites publishing 500 to 1,000 pages per day suddenly losing rankings and traffic - The difference between legitimate programmatic SEO and scaled content abuse - Google's policy against scraping, stitching, and combining content without adding meaningful value - A site getting roughly 2,200 organic users per day before its traffic started collapsing - Guru99 falling from an estimated 14 million monthly organic clicks in 2021 to roughly 50,000 today - The pattern of sites rapidly increasing their number of pages while their organic traffic falls - Why "Mount AI" happens when sites use AI to rapidly scale low-value content - Mike King's explanation for why Google may not need to detect AI-generated content directly - How user behavior and site-quality signals can eventually expose bad scaled content - Why generative AI at scale is not inherently spam if the pages actually provide value - An expired-domain case that some SEOs initially blamed on the spam update - Why redirects from acquired or expired domains aren't automatically expired domain abuse - The importance of maintaining search intent when migrating or redirecting pages - SaaS sites that appear to be winning during the August volatility - Why short bottom-of-funnel landing pages are continuing to work - Sites previously hit by Google spam systems suddenly reporting recoveries - Whether this spam update could be followed by another Google core update I revisit Mike King's explanation of Mount AI. His argument is that Google doesn't need to reliably identify whether content was written by AI. Google can initially rank a large new set of pages, collect signals about how searchers respond, and then adjust the site's visibility based on those signals. Publishing 100,000 pages isn't automatically the problem. Publishing 100,000 pages that don't give searchers unique value is. There is a legitimate way to do programmatic SEO at scale. The underlying data, usefulness of the pages, search intent, UX, and reason for those pages to exist all matter. Meanwhile, I'm seeing encouraging movement from SaaS sites. Our own vibe-coded SaaS has been growing throughout August without aggressively scaling content, and I share another newer SaaS using short bottom-of-funnel landing pages that has also been gaining organic clicks. The August spam update is finished. Now we get to see whether the volatility settles down or Google has something else coming next. ⭐️ SE Roundtable: Google August 2026 Spam Update - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-august-2026-spam-update-done-41906.html ⭐️ Reddit: Who got hit - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO_Marketing_Offers/comments/1vsln4q/comment/p4mlfam/ ⭐️ David Quaid - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid/status/2090046206290386970?s=20 ⭐️ Expired Domain Comment - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1vrv11e/breaking_google_august_2026_spam_update_is/ ⭐️ Ep 1141 - Can You Launch 100,000 Pages and Survive Google? - https://youtu.be/wNtiygMsRfg ⭐️ Donmend0 on 𝕏 (site recovery) - https://x.com/donmend0/status/2090438229635879068 ⭐️ Ganesh_S_007 on 𝕏 (site recovery) - https://x.com/Ganesh_S_007/status/2090502537741029874 ⭐️ Ep 1127 - Google's Biggest SEO Leak Changed Everything… But Almost Nobody Adapted - https://youtu.be/fIs1ZSmEJGU ⭐️ James Dooley - https://youtu.be/EOkrLkKNDrY 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Spam Update Recap 01:03 Scaled Content Fallout 03:32 Spam Policy Breakdown 04:11 Programmatic SEO Wipeouts 05:31 Guru99 Case Study 08:15 Mount AI Explained 10:32 Expired Domain Confusion 12:49 SaaS Sites Winning 13:54 Recoveries and Core Rumors 15:13 Durable SEO 17:06 Episode Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #programmaticseo #seopodcast

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Showing 61–80 of 109 episodes