The Edward Show

Edward Sturm
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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.

  1. 1 day ago

    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

  2. 1 day ago

    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

  3. 2 days ago

    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

  4. 3 days ago

    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

  5. 3 days ago

    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

  6. 4 days ago

    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

  7. 5 days ago

    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

  8. 6 days ago

    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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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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  • Creator
    Edward Sturm
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1.1k
  • Rating
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    © 2026
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    The Edward Show

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