The Edward Show

E1128: Local SEO is changing as Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other AI systems influence how people find and evaluate local businesses. I'm joined by Joy Hawkins and Caleb Ulku for a detailed discussion about what is working in local SEO now, which common tactics are becoming less effective, and how businesses should prepare for AI-powered local search. Joy and Caleb compare what they are s...

E1127: Google's biggest SEO leak gave marketers more information about how search works than almost any event in the industry's history. But according to Mike King, most SEO strategies, tools, and reporting systems barely changed after the leak. Mike explains what the leaked Google API documentation confirmed, what it revealed about links and ranking systems, and why the SEO industry has failed to...

E1126: Breaking down one of the most misunderstood parts of SEO: Google Search Console. David Quaid returns to the podcast, sharing his screen, showing what is really going on. Many SEOs judge performance by looking at clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position. But those numbers, by themselves, rarely tell you why a page is succeeding or failing. Instead, we explain how to use...

E1125: A page can target an easy keyword, match the search intent, and still fail to stay indexed or rank. I explain why republishing that page under a new URL may give Google a reason to evaluate it again using the topical authority your website has built since the page was first published. I experienced this with a page I originally published in March 2023. The keyword was easy, the page was pro...

E1124: YouTube's AI detection system classified videos from Kurzgesagt as AI-generated spam, even though the videos are made with love by ducks and people. That mistake sharply reduced distribution for one of the largest science channels on YouTube. The affected video performed well on the usual quality signals: - People clicked at an above-average rate - Viewers watched for longer than usual - Au...

E1123: Claude shared conversations were appearing in Google, Bing, and other search engines, exposing information that users may never have expected to become publicly searchable. The problem was not caused by a complicated search engine failure. It came down to a basic technical SEO mistake: the shared pages were accessible to search engines without the correct indexing controls in place. In this...

E1122: What does an SEO actually do every day? The answer depends on the stage of the website. The work required for a brand-new site is very different from the work required for a site that already ranks, generates revenue, or has an established presence in its market. I break down the day-to-day responsibilities of an SEO across three stages: - A brand-new website - A website that is already ran...

E1121: There is no permanent #1 ranking in AI search. Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR and Charles Floate join the show to explain why Google's results are becoming less fixed, more variable, and harder to measure with traditional rank tracking. They break down what is changing across Google Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other answer engines - and what they are changing in their own SEO s...

E1120: Your competitors may have 500 to 1,000 backlinks while your site has only a handful. That does not automatically mean you need hundreds of links to compete. I break down a popular SEO subreddit discussion about how to build backlinks today. I review the strongest comments, explain which advice is useful, and show why relevance, real traffic, relationships, and search intent often matter mor...

E1119: Most ecommerce brands assume they need more traffic. But sometimes the real problem is the product page. I sit down with James Backenstone from Build Grow Scale as we screenshare and tear apart real ecommerce product pages while explaining why some pages convert while others lose the sale. James has spent 10 years studying customer behavior, working with more than 100 brands, and reviewing...

E1118: Google hit WindowsForum.com with a manual action covering roughly 168,000 forum threads and more than half a million posts. The site's owners argued that Google unfairly punished a decades-old community for "thin content" without providing example URLs. But once you look deeper, the case becomes much more complicated. We investigate what WindowsForum says happened, what changed on the site...

E1117: Breaking down Rank-and-Rent, one of the most profitable local SEO business models. We are joined by a pro in the subject: Ippei Kanehara Ippei has been building Rank-and-Rent websites for more than 11 years. During that time he's built hundreds of local lead generation sites, generated recurring income from websites that are over a decade old, and recently built 130 new sites to test what's...

E1116: James Dooley joins the pod to explain what's working in SEO in 2026, based on years of testing across hundreds of websites, multiple industries, and highly competitive search markets. James describes himself as a "money-hat SEO": he is less interested in labels such as white hat or black hat and more interested in testing, measuring results, managing risk, and building assets that make mone...

E1115: Endre Olsvik Elvestad built a large SEO program around SignLab, a sign-language learning company. Its websites offered searchable sign language videos across multiple countries. Then Google AI Overviews appeared. SignLab lost about 50% of its Google clicks. High-intent traffic and app downloads fell even harder. Google could show the answer directly in search by displaying SignLab's videos,...

1113: Five websites once dominated Google search, bringing in millions and millions of clicks every month. Then their rankings collapsed. We break down five major SEO declines from the last few years, explain what caused them, and show why one site was able to recover while the others continued to struggle. These examples cover some of the most common SEO mistakes companies are still making today,...

E1114: AI can search faster, pull data from dozens of sources, analyze entire websites, and complete hours of SEO research in minutes. But AI still does not think. Andrew Melnychuk-Oseen explains what large language models actually do, why their reasoning can look more intelligent than it is, and where AI agents commonly fail when used for SEO. We discuss why AI-generated work often sounds convinc...

E1112: Medium is ranking strongly in Google again, and brands are using it to publish keyword-focused content, earn fast rankings, and appear in AI-generated search results. I explain why Medium has returned as a useful parasite SEO platform, how companies are using it alongside LinkedIn and other social platforms, and what can go wrong when the strategy becomes too promotional. You'll learn: - Wh...

E1111: Red Bull ranks for far more than energy drink keywords. It ranks for searches related to GTA V cheat codes, skateboarding, Formula 1, surfing, motocross, breakdancing, athletes, and many other topics across sports, gaming, and entertainment. I break down how Red Bull built enough authority to rank across such a wide range of subjects - and why its success comes from much more than publishin...

E1110: Google may be preparing its biggest crackdown on scaled AI content yet. David Quaid joins the show to explain why he believes the next major Google update could be as significant as Panda or Penguin, why automated content production is the real risk, and how legitimate websites could get caught in the fallout. We discuss the difference between using AI to help create content and using AI to...

E1109: Local backlinks do not have to come from guest posts, national websites, or expensive digital PR campaigns. In this episode, Ellen Sartin and Garrett French explain how local businesses can build backlinks through community sponsorships, nonprofit partnerships, chambers of commerce, local events, schools, youth sports teams, and other organizations operating in their area. They break down h...

E1108: Hank Azarian has worked in SEO for more than 20 years across LegalZoom, Like.com, Refinery29, TMZ, Raptive, and thousands of independent publisher websites. In this episode, Hank explains what he learned from working with more than 5,000 publishers, scaling major media sites, building SEO systems, and testing what actually improves traffic, engagement, and revenue. We cover: - How organic s...

E1107: E-commerce SEO is no longer only about ranking product and category pages in Google. AI search tools are also surfacing filtered URLs, faceted navigation pages, intent-based collections, and detailed product pages for highly specific buying queries. I speak with Gagan Ghotra and Harpreet Singh about how e-commerce brands can improve visibility in Google, ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and AI Mode w...

E1105: Google is not indexing every page it discovers. As the web keeps growing, Google has to decide which pages are worth crawling regularly, storing in its index, and showing in search results. That means weak site structure, accidental noindex tags, and poor internal linking can make it harder for your important pages to get indexed. We break down three simple SEO mistakes shared by Mike Fried...

E1106: Pedro Dias spent six years working in Google Search Quality, where he investigated web spam, reviewed search results, and helped identify quality problems across different markets. In this episode, Pedro explains how Google evaluates websites, why many popular SEO metrics are misleading, and what site owners should focus on if they want stronger rankings. We begin with the LinkedIn post tha...

E1104: Your best-performing pages may already be ranking for dozens or hundreds of searches that they do not fully cover. I show you a practical one-hour SEO update that uses Google Search Console and Claude to find those missed opportunities, add the right sections to your content, and help pages that already perform well rank for even more keywords. You are not guessing which topics to add. You...