Episodes
-
The New SEO Business Model: Buy News Sites Instead of Backlinks (w/ David Quaid)
E1212: What if SEO agencies stopped buying backlinks and started buying the news sites that publish them? David Quaid joins me to break down a business model he calls "news as a service": acquiring established news sites, local publications, and niche blogs, improving their SEO, and using them to...
-
10 SEO Tips That Made Clients $35M (And Where I Disagree)
E1211: Can SEO generate revenue in 3-6 months? Deno Hawari shared 10 SEO tips drawn from work that generated $35 million for clients. I go through every tip, explain what I agree with, and push back where the advice needs more context. A lot of this comes down to targeting keywords that indicate...
-
Google Explains How It Understands Keywords (And How to Rank for More)
E1209: Google's John Mueller explained how Google interprets searches, expands keywords with synonyms, and connects related topics. At Search Central Live in Barcelona, Google also showed how AI search breaks one question into multiple searches before generating an answer. I break down a widely...
-
The Backlinks Worth Paying $2,000 For (w/ Ilias ISM)
E1210: What makes a backlink worth $2,000? Ilias ISM joins me to explain which links he pays for, how he finds them, and why pages that rank and get real visitors often matter more than domain rating alone. Ilias is a software engineer turned SEO who builds SaaS products and runs an SEO agency.…
more -
Is GEO a Distraction? Marie Haynes vs. Mike King (and the Tactics That Work)
E1208: Is GEO a distraction, or are SEOs measuring the wrong thing? Marie Haynes analyzed 145 million sessions across 100 websites and found that ChatGPT sent just 0.62% as much traffic as Google organic. All LLMs combined sent 0.73%. Mike King argues that those numbers miss the point: AI search...
-
He Dug Through 9,249 SEO Case Studies. Here's What Actually Works
E1207: An SEO spent his summer collecting more than 30,000 documents to find which SEO tactics work. That SEO, Krešimir Ćorluka, narrowed them to 9,249 studies, tests, and papers, then ranked the strongest evidence. I covered some of his most surprising findings in an earlier episode. This time,...
-
Black Friday SEO: How to Rank on Google & ChatGPT (Even If You're Starting Late)
E1206: Black Friday SEO usually starts months before the sale. But if you're starting late, there are still ways to get your offers in front of buyers on Google and ChatGPT. I'm joined by Gagan Ghotra, Harpreet Singh, and David Quaid to break down Black Friday SEO for ecommerce brands, SaaS...
-
Google's AI Content-Killing Algorithm Is Coming (15-Year Recovery Expert Explains)
E1204: Google is heading toward an algorithm designed to target AI-generated content, according to Kristine Schachinger, an SEO and Google penalty recovery specialist with 15 years of recovery experience. Google's John Mueller liked her public prediction that recent spam updates are testing the...
-
The Local SEO Tricks Google Hasn't Caught Yet (Bodhi Gallo)
E1203: Bodhi Gallo reveals the local SEO tactics he's using to rank businesses on Google Maps, including strategies he believes Google hasn't caught up with yet. Bodhi grew a dumpster rental business to roughly $750,000 in annual revenue through local SEO before selling it. Today, he runs a...
-
How to Get AI to Name You the Top Expert in Your Niche
E1202: AI is turning self-promotion into recommendations. People are calling themselves the top expert in their niche on LinkedIn, in press releases, and on their own websites. Google's AI Overviews then repeat those claims and cite the original posts as evidence. I break down real examples from...
-
Google Is Feeding Ahrefs and Semrush Fake Rankings. Here's What to Trust Instead
E1201: Google is feeding Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and other SEO rank trackers incorrect search results. Websites appear to lose rankings overnight, even when Google Search Console shows stable rankings and traffic. Google's crackdown on AI companies scraping its search results is disrupting SEO…
more -
9 SEO Strategies That Actually Work (Real Answers From Reddit)
E1200: What SEO strategies actually work? I found a Reddit thread asking SEO practitioners which strategies delivered real results. For episode 1,200 of The Edward Show, I break down nine strategies and explain how to use them for Google rankings, backlinks, leads, and AI search visibility.…
more -
Nofollow Backlinks Do Boost Rankings (The Tests Google Doesn't Talk About)
E1198: Do nofollow backlinks boost Google rankings? I walk through findings from Rand Fishkin, Kyle Roof, and Joy Hawkins, plus an AI search study that challenges the idea that nofollow links have no SEO value. The practical takeaway: look beyond the link attribute. Pay attention to whether the...
-
Why Rihanna's Fenty Beats Dior in AI Search (And What You Can Copy)
E1199: Rihanna's Fenty Beauty is beating Dior in the AI Search. Harpreet Singh joins me to break down the customer reviews, third-party coverage, and product pages behind Fenty's outstanding visibility. His explanation starts with one idea: "AI is a parrot." When publications, customers, and...
-
Elon Musk's Grokipedia Just Lost 97% of Its Google Traffic. Here's Why
E1197: Elon Musk's Grokipedia went from 6.5 million monthly Google clicks in July to just 200,000. That's a 97% collapse in organic search traffic for xAI's entirely AI-written alternative to Wikipedia. And despite Grokipedia earning backlinks from The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, NBC News,...
-
GEO vs SEO Debate Gets Heated: The GEO Show Host Takes On David Quaid
E1196: Is GEO actually different from SEO, or is generative engine optimization simply SEO under a new name? Paris Childress, host of The GEO Show, joins David Quaid for a heated debate about what gets brands recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and other AI search engines. Paris...
-
Google's Secret "Content Effort" Score: Here's What It Looks For
E1195: Does Google measure how much effort you put into your content? Google's Quality Rater Guidelines mention effort more than 100 times, and the 2024 Google API leak revealed an LLM-based metric called "content effort." We're breaking down Cyrus Shepard's article, "Content Effort: The Google...
-
6,337 Cold Emails Reveal What Actually Gets Replies (And Backlinks)
E1194: Cold outreach is one of the most effective ways to build backlinks, earn media coverage, and get your content in front of the right people. But most outreach emails get ignored. A Reddit user analyzed 6,337 cold emails and uncovered striking differences in reply rates based on email…
more -
How Long Does SEO Take? Google Finally Shares the Real Numbers
E1192: How long does SEO actually take? Google's Gary Illyes shared specific timeframes for crawling, indexing, title changes, canonicalization, site migrations, manual action removals, and recovery from core updates. Some changes take hours. Others take months. And in certain cases, Google never...
-
Parasite SEO: How Charles Floate Ranks Pages on Google.com Itself
E1193: Charles Floate shares how he ranks parasite SEO pages on Google.com itself, gets those pages cited in Google's AI Overviews, and builds campaigns that generate thousands of dollars in revenue. With a full presentation, Charles breaks down his parasite SEO strategy, including the exact...
-
9,249 SEO Case Studies Reveal the Weirdest Tactics That Work
E1191: One SEO spent the summer going through more than 30,000 documents and narrowing them down to 9,249 SEO case studies, tests, and papers with measurable results. The final dataset covered 552 cited sources and 182 SEO tactics. I go through some of the weirdest findings, the tests I agree…
more -
Barry Schwartz: Google's War on AI Scrapers Is Breaking SEO Tools
E1190: Google is making it harder to scrape its search results, and SEO tools are getting caught in the middle. Barry Schwartz, founder of Search Engine Roundtable and one of the longest-running reporters in the search industry, joins me to break down what Google is doing, why rank-tracking data...
-
Blog Post, Landing Page, or Category Page? (Search Intent Quiz)
E1188: Your page might target a keyword properly and still lose rankings because you chose the wrong type of page for the search. I turn search intent into a quiz: for each keyword, predict whether searchers want a blog post, landing page, or category page - before I reveal the answer. I recently...
-
Exact Match Domains Still Rank in Local SEO - David Quaid Explains How
E1189: Exact match domains still rank in local SEO, and David Quaid explains where they still give businesses an advantage. David breaks down how to use exact match domains for local businesses, how they interact with Google Business Profiles, why branded domains and EMDs serve different…
more -
Google Just Changed Its AI Content Guidelines (Unreviewed AI Is Now a Liability)
E1187: Google changed its guidance on AI-generated content on October 1, and the new language makes one thing very clear: publishing unchecked AI content creates real SEO risk. Google now explicitly says publishers must manually fact-check and review AI-generated content for accuracy and...
-
Google's AI Overviews Now Tell Customers Why to Avoid Your Brand (w/ Ann Smarty)
E1186: Google is now showing AI Overviews for simple brand-name searches, and those summaries sometimes tell customers why they should avoid the company they just searched for. Ann Smarty joins to break down what this means for SEO, branded search, online reputation management, Reddit, reviews…
more -
Google's September 2026 Spam Update Phase 2 Hits (And Reddit's AI Translations Are Winning Again)
E1185: Google's September 2026 spam update just entered what looks like phase two. Google launched the update on September 24. The first major wave hit around September 25-27. Things cooled down, then volatility exploded again on September 30. This rollout looks very different from Google's…
more -
Jacky Chou: Clone Indie Hacker Apps, Then Outrank Them on Google
E1184: Jacky Chou and David Quaid sit down for a wide-ranging conversation about where SEO still makes money in 2026, what Jacky would build today, and why he thinks most indie hackers leave huge opportunities on the table. Jacky's opening argument is simple: find SaaS products already making...
-
ChatGPT Is Building Its Own Search Index. Here's How to Rank in It
E1183: ChatGPT is building more of its own search index, and that changes where SEO goes next. David G. Quaid joins me to break down what OpenAI appears to be doing, how its cached web content starts to function like an index, and what SEOs need to understand if ChatGPT relies less on Google and...
-
AEO Companies Are Selling You 2016 SEO
E1182: AEO companies keep presenting old SEO tactics as if AI search invented them. Harpreet Singh joins me to break down what is actually different about AEO/GEO, what is simply traditional SEO with new terminology, and where companies are wasting time because they do not understand the history…
more -
6 Boring SEO Habits That Actually Grow Your Traffic
E1181: I break down six SEO habits that marketers and site owners use to grow traffic without chasing a new tactic every week. These came from a popular SEO Growth subreddit thread where people shared the habits that made the biggest difference for them. I go through the best responses, explain…
more -
Google's September 2026 Spam Update Is Here (And It Came With a Secret AI Spam Detector)
E1180: Google's September 2026 spam update is rolling out, and this one looks very different from the last few. The update started September 24 and is registering a 9.4/10 on Semrush's volatility tracker. Google Search Advocate John Mueller also confirmed that this spam update is expected to take...
-
Black Hat SEO in 2026 Why PBNs Still Work (With the Guy Who Owns 200,000 Domains)
E1179: PBNs still work in 2026, and Kalin Karakehayov has the numbers to back up why he thinks they remain one of the most underrated strategies in SEO. I'm joined by Kalin Karakehayov, Charles Floate, and David Quaid for a deep discussion on black hat SEO, private blog networks, aged domains,...
-
Ross Hudgens: The Page Type That Drives the Most AI Search Traffic
E1177: Ross Hudgens of Siege Media breaks down the page type driving the most AI search traffic across his clients: versus pages. Ross says Siege Media's correlation analysis found that clients with the most AI traffic also had the most comparison and versus content. We get into why these pages...
-
Google Just Dropped the Parasite SEO Penalty in Europe. Here's the Catch
E1177: Google just changed how its parasite SEO penalty works across Europe, but the headline leaves out the most important part. I break down Google's change to its Site Reputation Abuse Policy inside the European Economic Area and explain what it means for parasite SEO, publishers, affiliate...
-
Legal SEO: How Personal Injury Lawyers Turn Google Searches Into Signed Cases
E1176: Breaking down legal SEO - specifically search engine optimization that makes money for personal injury law firms. I talk with Lindsey Busfield of Optimize My Firm about how her team approaches SEO exclusively for personal injury law firms. We get into the pages that make money, how to...
-
How to Sell SEO Without Ever Saying "SEO"
E1175: Most SEOs know how to rank websites. Far fewer know how to sell that skill. Blair Witkowski joins to break down how he sells SEO services without leading with the word "SEO." Instead, he talks about phone calls, missed leads, competitors showing up in ChatGPT, and money the business owner...
-
Google's Leaked Internal Presentation: "Don't Talk About Clicks"
E1174: Google has told employees not to discuss how clicks are used in Search outside of a need-to-know basis. That comes directly from an internal Google presentation from around the end of 2018 that surfaced during discovery in Google's antitrust trial. The presentation gives a rare look at how...
-
The Internal Linking Trick That Uses Topical Authority You Already Have
E1173: Internal linking is one of the fastest SEO improvements you can make, and this episode breaks down a simple method for using topical authority you already have to rank new pages and push existing pages higher. The method starts with a Google search: [your website] "keyword you want to rank...
-
How He Ranks #1 in Google Maps From 53 Miles Away | Mike Martin
E1172: Mike Martin ranks #1 in Google Maps for "business coaching" from 53 miles away from his Google Business Profile. In this episode, Mike breaks down the Google Business Profile strategy he uses across his own businesses, clients, and agencies. The core is what he calls the GBP Loop: profile...
-
Query Augmentation: How One Page Ranks for Thousands of Keywords | James Dooley
E1171: Query augmentation: how Google connects searches with related queries and why one page can end up ranking for hundreds or thousands of keywords that never even appear on the page. James Dooley returns to the show, bringing the goods. We get into the difference between lexical matching and...
-
How SEOs Actually Find Keywords in 2026 (What Reddit Gets Right and Wrong)
E1169: How are SEOs doing keyword research in 2026? I break down a viral thread from the SEO subreddit where SEOs shared their real processes, tools, shortcuts, and ways of deciding which keywords deserve attention. Some of the advice is strong. Some of it misses the point. The biggest mistake is...
-
Nike Has Infinite SEO Authority. Its Blog Gets 1,400 Clicks a Month.
E1170: Nike has one of the strongest brands and domains on the internet, yet its blog gets an estimated 1,400 organic clicks per month. That is an absurd amount of wasted SEO authority. I sit down with David Quaid to break down why enormous companies like Nike, GoPro, and Chewy leave so much...
-
Claude Sites Have a Serious SEO Problem: Too Many Words
E1167: Claude-generated websites have a serious SEO problem: they use a lot of unnecessary words. Search intent is not only about covering the right topic. It is also about presenting the answer in a way that is fast and easy to consume. I break down three real AI-heavy websites and show how...
-
SaaS Link Building: Why One Listicle Placement Is Worth $1,000
E1168: SaaS link building gets expensive fast. In this episode, Kristiyan Yankov breaks down why a single placement in the right listicle can be worth $1,000+, how he decides which backlinks are worth paying for, and the link-building methods his team uses across more than 60 SaaS companies. We…
more -
Google Can Lose Faith In Your Website (Here's How To Get It Back)
E1166: Google can lose faith in your website. That is the language Google's John Mueller used when discussing sites filled with large amounts of programmatic SEO content, low-quality pages, and generated content that fails to give users enough value. I break down what that means, why bad old…
more -
Position #1 On Google Is Dead (8.1 Million Searches Prove It)
E1165: Position #1 on Google is dead, at least as a single, static ranking you can check once and trust. Joy Hawkins returns to break down a study of 8.1 million Google search results that found organic rankings became 48.7% more volatile after the May 2026 Core Update. 97% of the tracking…
more -
How $72 in Press Releases Made Google Call This Man the King of AEO
E1164: It cost just $72 in press releases to get Google's AI Overview to call James Dooley the "King of AEO." I break down how two cheap press releases created enough relevance and third-party confirmation for Google to repeat the claim directly inside an AI Overview. The first press release cost...
-
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…
more -
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...
About this show
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.
Hosted by
Edward Sturm
Categories