The Edward Show

E922: SEO researcher, Mateusz Makosiewicz, created a completely fake luxury brand, published a few fabricated stories about it on Reddit and Medium, and watched as major AI tools confidently repeated the lies as fact. Even when the company's own website said those claims were false, the AI systems still chose the fake stories. This episode walks through exactly how the experiment worked, which AI models failed, which ones held up, and what this means for anyone running a brand, a website, or a business in an AI-driven search world. If you rely on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or AI search results to understand companies, products, or people, this episode will change how you think about what those tools are actually telling you. What this covers: - How a fake luxury brand was created from scratch - How three fake stories were planted on Medium, Reddit, and blogs - Why AI models trusted fake journalism over official company data - How detailed lies beat vague truths inside AI systems - Which models were easiest to manipulate - Which models resisted the misinformation - Why Medium "investigations" are especially dangerous - How Reddit, Quora, and blogs now shape AI answers - Why AI loses memory of its own past doubts - What this means for reputation management and SEO - How brands can protect themselves in AI search The core problem: AI does not care what is true. It cares what sounds complete. When forced to choose between: - A company saying "we do not disclose that" - A fake article giving specific numbers, names, and locations The AI almost always chooses the fake article. That means anyone with a Medium account and a few hours can influence how AI describes your business, your brand, or your products. Why this matters for marketers and founders For many, AI tools have become the front door to the internet. People ask them what to buy, who to trust, and which companies are real. This experiment shows that: - AI search can be manipulated - Fake narratives spread easily - Official websites are not always trusted - Third-party content now has more weight than your own claims That turns SEO and PR into something new: narrative control for machines. We also cover the offensive and defensive playbook that comes out of this experiment, including: - How to structure FAQ pages so AI trusts them - Why you need detailed numbers, dates, and explanations - Why vague marketing language makes you vulnerable - Why comparison pages and data pages matter - How to monitor Medium, Reddit, and blogs for brand hijacking - How to detect narrative attacks early If you care about AI, SEO, brand reputation, or the future of search, this is one of the most important case studies there is. ⭐️ I Ran an AI Misinformation Experiment. Every Marketer Should See the Results - https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-vs-made-up-brand-experiment/ 💎 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 Introduction to the AI Misinformation Experiment 00:29 Overview of the Article and Key Takeaways 01:17 Building a Fake Brand: Xarumei 02:27 Phase Two: Introducing Conflicting Sources 04:14 AI Models' Reactions and Results 09:25 Conclusions and Best Practices for Marketers 12:08 Final Thoughts The Edward Show. Your daily generative engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #generativeengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #seo

E921: Edward sits down with David Fano, Head of Growth at Teal and former WeWork executive, to break down how Teal built one of the largest SEO engines in the job search space. Teal now ranks for more than 893,000 keywords and gets over one million organic clicks per month from Google. In this conversation, David explains exactly how that happened, what broke along the way, and how AI agents, SERP analysis, and internal linking now drive their growth. This is not theory. This is what it looks like to run SEO at real scale inside a fast-growing SaaS company. What you'll learn: - How Teal built an SEO system that ranks for nearly 900,000 keywords - Why long-tail SEO worked, and why it eventually created new problems - How launching millions of job pages hurt their resume rankings - What topical authority really means in practice - How Google decides whether two keywords are actually different - Why "resume builder" and "AI resume builder" behave differently in search - How SERP analysis tells you more than SEO tools ever will - How Claude is being used to crawl, analyze, and compare search results - How to automate SEO research with headless browsers and AI agents - How internal linking can either amplify or dilute ranking power - Why pillar pages matter more than most people realize - How Teal uses vectorized content to guide linking and content creation - How AI is being used to update, audit, and refresh content at scale - Why some pages must convert and some pages must rank - What happens when CRO and SEO fight each other - How Canva dominates resume and template search results - Why some keywords should live on one page instead of two - How exact-match domains and entity SEO still influence rankings - How Teal got early traffic by ranking for "ChatGPT resume" before anyone else - What Google's shift toward topical authority means for large sites - How to recover when a new section of your site damages your main revenue pages Topics covered: - SEO for SaaS - Programmatic SEO - AI agents and browser automation - SERP analysis - Topical authority - Resume builder and job board SEO - Internal linking strategy - Pillar pages - Schema and indexing - Google Search Console - Content decay and freshness - Entity SEO - Link building and digital PR Watch if you care about: - Growing organic traffic at scale - Using AI to do real SEO work, not content spam - Building sites that Google actually trusts - Turning search traffic into revenue - Understanding how Google evaluates topics, not just pages Subscribe for daily deep dives on SEO, growth, and how modern companies actually get traffic from Google and AI search. ⭐️ David Fano on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfano/ ⭐️ David Fano on 𝕏 - https://x.com/davidfano ⭐️ Teal's main page for anyone looking to improve their resume and land a job - https://www.tealhq.com/tools/resume-builder 💎 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 Introduction and Guest Background 00:57 Journey into SEO and Early Career 02:27 WeWork Experience and Growth Strategies 04:47 SEO Challenges and Strategies at WeWork 06:19 Current Role and SEO at Teal 16:11 SEO Automation and Tools 35:53 Analyzing Organic Search Results 36:16 Building SEO Automation Tools 37:27 Challenges with Keyword Management 39:21 Vectorizing Content for Better SEO 40:48 Internal Linking Strategies 44:18 Impact of Job Pages on SEO 57:43 Link Building Strategies 01:10:44 A Challenging Day and Video Posting Struggles 01:11:23 Automation Tools and Social Media Posting 01:12:07 Manual Posting Success Stories 01:13:31 LinkedIn Posting Strategies 01:18:23 The Importance of Effort in Social Media 01:22:22 SEO Insights and Strategies 01:23:31 Building and Managing a Team 01:23:50 Final Thoughts and Advice The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #programmaticseo #growthmarketing #seo

E920: I break down one of the most unusual and important SEO stories of the decade: how Grokipedia, an AI-generated encyclopedia connected to Elon Musk's Grok, went from almost zero Google traffic to millions of clicks in just weeks - and why that could force Google into a decision that changes the future of AI content in search. Grokipedia isn't just another AI site. It is structured like Wikipedia, fully interlinked, heavily indexed, and now ranking for millions of keywords. But unlike Wikipedia, its articles are generated and fact-checked by AI, with only optional human edit suggestions. That creates a serious problem: how does Google handle a massive AI-generated reference site that now competes directly with Wikipedia? This walks through what Grokipedia is, how it grew so fast, how its SEO strategy works, and why its existence puts Google in an almost impossible position. What this covers: - What Elon Musk said about Wikipedia and Grokipedia - How Grokipedia went from 19 Google clicks per month to 3.2 million - How Grokipedia uses interlinking, server-side rendering, and SEO structure - Why AI-generated encyclopedias can be manipulated through search results - How press releases and indexed claims can be used to influence AI "fact checking" - What Google's quality guidelines say about AI-generated content - Why other AI sites have already been heavily deranked - The precedent this could set for AI content across the entire web - Why Google's response could trigger a public controversy - What solutions might exist, and why none of them are easy The core question: Is an AI-generated encyclopedia with hallucinations more dangerous than a human-edited encyclopedia with ideological bias? And if both have flaws, which one should Google promote in search? This episode explains why Google cannot avoid making a decision - and why whatever they do will shape how AI content is treated in search for years to come. ⭐️ Grokipedia - https://grokipedia.com/ ⭐️ Wikipedia - https://www.wikipedia.org/ ⭐️ Google quality raters now assess whether content is AI-generated - https://searchengineland.com/google-quality-raters-content-ai-generated-454161 💎 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 Introduction and Disclaimer 00:40 Wikipedia vs. Grokipedia: The Controversy 02:48 SEO Manipulation and Potential Issues 04:04 Grokipedia's SEO Success 05:15 Google's Stance on AI Content 06:58 Possible Outcomes and Solutions 09:17 Get Customers With SEO 11:53 Conclusion and Sign-Off The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #grokipedia #aiseo #digitalmarketing

919: Charles Floate joins the show to reveal what link building looks like inside restricted and gray market verticals like iGaming, crypto, and prediction markets. This is not a surface-level SEO conversation. It's a practical breakdown of how rankings are achieved, defended, and lost in some of the most competitive and hostile SERPs on the internet. The discussion covers why ranking is often the easy part - and why maintaining rank has become the real challenge as negative SEO, DMCA abuse, and large-scale link manipulation continue to increase. Topics covered include: - How link building works in restricted verticals where traditional outreach fails - Reverse engineering SERPs to understand what Google is rewarding right now - Why many competitors rank using identical techniques - and why Google allows it - Subdomain canonical strategies and aged domain leverage - Scaling link building without massive outreach teams using AI systems - The role of human validation and where automation becomes dangerous - Why most large budgets in iGaming are wasted on low-value links - How to identify real topical authority using link gap analysis - Tiered link building and when it actually makes sense - The difference between ranking and maintaining rankings in gray markets - DMCA takedowns as a negative SEO weapon - and how widespread they've become - Why some competitors disappear from Google overnight - The resurgence of PBNs and why they're working again - Link insertions, niche edits, and why Google hasn't stopped them - Beginner-friendly link building tactics that still work - Why statistics pages attract links passively from both humans and AI systems - Common on-page and technical SEO mistakes in iGaming sites - Intent mapping and why page type matters more than keywords - How AI search results change the need for consensus across sources - Link versioning and how authoritative pages replace existing sources - The limits of white hat SEO in international and gray markets - Cloaking tactics that still appear in the wild - and which ones are mostly gone This episode is intended for experienced SEOs, agency owners, and operators working in highly competitive or restricted niches. If you work in regulated, gray, or high-risk verticals, this conversation reflects the realities you're already dealing with. If you found this episode useful, consider subscribing for daily discussions on SEO, marketing systems, and real-world ranking strategies. New episodes are published every day. ⭐️ Charles Floate on 𝕏 - https://x.com/Charles_SEO ⭐️ Charles Floate on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesfloate/ ⭐️ Charles Floate on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@CharlesFloate ⭐️ Charles Floate on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TheCharlesFloate/ ⭐️ Charles Floate's PressWhizz - https://presswhizz.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 Introduction to SEO Attacks and Revenue Impact 00:32 Welcome and Introduction to Charles Floate 01:01 Reverse Engineering and Link Building in Competitive Niches 02:22 Techniques for Ranking in Gray Market Niches 06:15 Scaling Link Building with AI 10:43 Common Mistakes in Link Building and SEO 16:54 Advanced Techniques and Best Practices 23:23 Intent Mapping in SEO 25:14 Challenges in iGaming SEO 25:30 DMCA Takedowns and Negative SEO 28:58 AI and Negative SEO 32:13 Black Hat Link Building Tactics 41:53 Link Building in Restricted Verticals 43:54 Conclusion and Future Episodes The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #blackhatseo #linkbuilding #searchengineoptimization #competitiveseo

E918: David Quaid returns to the show to break down one of the most misunderstood topics in SEO: XML sitemaps. Every day, people are told that if their pages are "crawled but not indexed," the fix is simple - submit a sitemap. This episode explains why that advice is usually wrong, what XML sitemaps actually do, and why authority is the real factor behind indexing and rankings. This conversation reframes SEO as a system, not a checklist. Instead of treating Google like it follows instructions, we look at how crawling, indexing, PageRank decay, and authority actually work in practice. Topics covered: - What XML sitemaps do and what they don't do - Why "crawled but not indexed" is almost never a sitemap issue - How Google crawlers really work (and why they aren't "spiders") - The difference between crawling, indexing, and ranking - Why pages without authority don't get indexed - How internal links actually transfer authority - PageRank decay and why most links don't matter - Why manual URL submission is usually the wrong approach - Client-side rendering, JavaScript, and how Googlebot handles them - Why content quality is not the reason most pages aren't indexed - How large sites (Amazon, eBay, news sites) still have low index rates - Why backlinks only matter if the linking page has traffic - Common mistakes SEOs make with sitemaps, crawl optimization, and indexing tools - When HTML sitemaps make more sense than XML sitemaps - How authority shapes indexing for programmatic SEO and large sites Who this episode is for: - SEOs struggling with pages that won't get indexed - Founders and developers working on small or mid-sized sites - Anyone relying on XML sitemaps as an indexing strategy - People who want to understand how Google actually evaluates pages Key takeaway: If Google can crawl your page but won't index it, the problem is not technical. It's authority. XML sitemaps don't create authority, don't force indexing, and don't fix underlying SEO issues. SEO works as a system. If you try to treat it like a checklist, it will break. ⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid ⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/ ⭐️ David 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 Introduction to Sitemaps and SEO 00:35 Debunking Common Sitemap Myths 01:23 Understanding Google Crawlers 03:02 Client-Side vs Server-Side Rendering 03:26 Authority and Relevance in SEO 03:36 Challenges with JavaScript and SEO 05:01 The Role of Authority in Indexing 10:50 Practical Tips for Improving Indexing 12:56 The Importance of Context in Links 15:14 Managing Sitemaps for Small Sites 16:04 Handling Noindex Pages 16:53 Crawling and Indexing Challenges 17:24 Manual Submit Requests and Google Bots 19:55 The Role of Sitemaps 21:23 Backlinks and Authority 23:40 Programmatic SEO Insights 23:52 Common Mistakes in Programmatic SEO 24:04 SEO for Large Websites 25:44 SEO Strategies for New Sites 30:42 SEO Fun and Future Topics 31:04 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #xmlsitemap #googlesearchconsole #webdevelopment