The Edward Show

E1076: Do lost backlinks still help your SEO after they disappear? We look at the "link echo" effect: the idea that Google may continue to carry value from backlinks even after those links are removed. This came up again after a recent Google Search Console bug made many SEOs think they had lost a large number of backlinks. Some people saw link counts drop or even go to zero, which caused a lot of...

E1077: Ash Nallawalla has been doing SEO for more than 25 years, mostly inside or alongside large companies. In this episode, we talk about why SEO so often gets ignored inside big organizations, even when leadership says organic search matters. Ash explains his idea of visibility governance: the rules, documentation, ownership, approvals, and accountability needed to make sure SEO recommendations...

E1075: Google's May Core Update may be officially over, but many SEOs and site owners are still seeing major ranking volatility in June. We break down what people are reporting across the search results, why the update may still feel active, and what types of sites and pages appear to be gaining or losing visibility. We cover the ongoing chatter around traffic drops, sudden ranking swings, e-comme...

E1074: Blogging is not dead. Bad blogging is. I break down how people are still making money from blogs in 2026, why so many "SEO is dead" takes are coming from people who never won with SEO in the first place, and what works now if you want to build a niche site that gets traffic and makes money. I start with a Reddit post from someone who ignored the usual advice that blogging is dead, kept goin...

E1073: Most small business owners know they should care about SEO, but they often misunderstand what moves the needle. I'm joined by Mariah Magazine to break down what small business owners get wrong about SEO, why keyword research is more than just picking phrases with search volume, and how business owners can use search data to make better decisions about their websites, offers, and content. Ma...

E1072: Breaking down the most common CRO and SEO advice shared by entrepreneurs and marketers, and explaining why nearly all of it comes back to one principle: matching search intent. The discussion comes from a popular entrepreneur community thread where dozens of business owners share the tactics that consistently improve both rankings and conversions. Despite different backgrounds and industrie...

E1071: How does ChatGPT choose which brands to cite, and how much of that comes from Google's existing search ecosystem? Zachary Long (Modern Humans AI) and SEO veteran David Quaid join the show for a clear, side-by-side conversation about "GEO vs SEO" and what influences visibility inside AI-generated answers and recommendations. Along the way, they discuss how AI tools gather sources, what "real...

E1070: Breaking down the most extensive LocalBusiness schema test ever run - what it proves, what it doesn't, and why the results matter for local SEO and how businesses show up in ChatGPT. Jake Hundley joins Edward Sturm and David Quaid to walk through a controlled schema experiment designed to answer a simple question: does LocalBusiness schema move the needle? The study tested performance acros...

E1069: Search interest in SEO just hit a new all-time high. For more than a decade, people have said SEO is dying. Every algorithm update. Every new platform. Every new shift in traffic. The narrative repeats. But the data tells a different story. I break down why search engine optimization is at its highest recorded interest level, what changed over the past 24 months, and why the AEO panic is no...

E1068: Breaking down a real-world ecommerce SEO test that answers a common question: if you have multiple product variations (size, color, quantity), is there anything "special" you should do? The test looked at a simple canonical tag change and found a clear lift on variation pages, without hurting the main product pages. What you'll learn - How canonical tags affect indexing and rankings when pr...

E1067: Most e-commerce founders believe they need more traffic. In reality, most stores already have enough qualified visitors. They just fail to convert them. In this episode, I sit down with David Schomer - former CPA, Amazon seller, founder, and now CEO of Build Grow Scale - to break down why most e-commerce sites waste organic and paid traffic, and what actually increases revenue. We go deep i...

E1066: Breaking down exactly how Jotform built an SEO engine that consistently drives traffic, rankings, and high-intent users - and what you can apply to your own business. Jotform is getting a whopping 2.7 million clicks per month from Google. We're looking at real numbers, real pages, and real strategy. Jotform has: - 92/100 domain authority - 21.2 million backlinks - 108,000 ranking keywords -...

E1065: Kalin Karakehayov owns more than 200,000 domains and operates a portfolio of roughly 30,000 websites. In this episode, Kalin explains how the domain industry actually works, why expired domains can be worth millions to the right buyer, and what most SEO professionals misunderstand about backlinks, authority, and ranking websites. We discuss how domains are acquired, how aged domains are eva...

E1064: Most business owners think their niche is too competitive for SEO. It's not. I explain why most people completely misjudge competition, why keyword difficulty scores are misleading, and how bottom-of-funnel SEO is still wide open - even in 2026. Top-of-funnel informational SEO has taken a major hit. Click-through rates have dropped. AI overviews are reducing traffic. Ranking #1 doesn't mean...

E1063: If you run a large ecommerce site with hundreds of thousands or millions of product pages, and only a fraction of them are indexed, you are not alone. David Quaid and I break down why Google indexes only 30-40% of pages on many large sites - and what actually determines whether a product page gets crawled and indexed. This conversation covers how authority flows through large websites, why...

E1062: Most link building advice sounds great until you try to execute it. The real challenge isn't "getting backlinks." It's getting links that make sense, earning real replies, and avoiding tactics that waste your time. I break down a Reddit post that ranks five link building methods by how well they work in practice. I walk through each method, why it works, what to watch out for, and give many...

E1061: Breaking down one of the most interesting SEO experiments in recent memory: the Cats.txt hoax created by Mark Williams-Cook. He invented a completely fake "standard" called cats.txt, published formal documentation for it, and made it look legitimate. Soon after, major crawlers were requesting the file. Google indexed it. AI overviews described it as real. ChatGPT even said it could help you...

E1060: AI search is not magic. It is pattern recognition at scale. It looks for consensus, relevance, authority, repetition, and reinforcement across the web. If you understand that, you can influence it. In this episode, Kasra Dash and I break down how AI search engines like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity decide who to recommend. We go deep into what is working...

E1059: Is SEO actually dead this time? Every few years, the industry declares the end of SEO. This time the argument sounds stronger: AI overviews, AI-generated content, Google "stealing" traffic, collapsing affiliate sites, and major ranking volatility. In this episode, I sit down with Michał Suski, co-founder of Surfer SEO, to break down what's really happening. We talk about what has really cha...

E1058: AI search tools don't just look at your website anymore. They look at your reviews. They scan Reddit threads. They surface YouTube videos. They analyze what real people are saying about your brand. And if the internet says bad things about you, AI will repeat it. I break down why customer service is no longer just a support function. It directly affects whether AI tools recommend your produ...

E1057: One of the most common mistakes in SEO: Targeting multiple keywords on your homepage. A lot of marketers and even experienced SEOs believe the homepage has the most authority, so it should target everything. They stuff a primary keyword into the H1 and then scatter additional keywords into H2s and body copy. It sounds logical. It doesn't work. And worse, it costs you money. In this episode,...

E1056: Most people think the solution to competitive SEO is simple: build more backlinks. Authority matters. But if your page doesn't satisfy search intent quickly, backlinks will only help you rank temporarily. They won't help you stay there. In this episode, I break down what really wins in competitive SERPs: user signals. When Google is testing multiple pages targeting the same keyword, it look...

E1055: Most people lose sight of what SEO is actually capable of. If you do it properly, SEO is not just about traffic. It is about building an asset that can consistently generate customers, users, and leads without depending on paid ads or luck. In this episode, I break down what I call the promise of SEO - and why so many businesses quit right before it starts working. The problem is not that S...

E1054: Breaking down Google's May 2026 Broad Core Update and what I'm seeing across the SEO community as the rollout begins. Google announced a two-week rollout starting May 21, after several days of volatility that had people reporting major ranking swings and traffic changes. I cover what's likely driving the turbulence, what looks like noise, and what appears to be a real directional shift. Wha...

E1053: Breaking down Google's latest Search changes announced at Google I/O and what they mean in practice for SEO, businesses, agencies, publishers, and affiliates. I also cover the May 2026 core update announcement from Google Search Central, what people were noticing leading up to it, and early signals worth paying attention to. Google is reframing the search box into something closer to a prom...