The Edward Show

E1039: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is becoming one of the biggest topics in search, SEO, and AI marketing.
But is it actually safe?
Edward Sturm and Harpreet Singh break down what is really happening with GEO, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), AI citations, and AI search visibility across tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Perplexity, and Bing.
They discuss why many GEO strategies are creating short-term traffic spikes that later collapse after Google algorithm updates, why "scaled content" tactics are risky, and how some companies are damaging their long-term organic visibility chasing AI traffic.
The conversation also covers practical strategies that actually improve visibility in AI search without destroying your website.
Topics covered:
- What GEO and AEO actually are
- How AI search engines retrieve information
- Why the "query fan out" matters
- The connection between Google rankings and AI citations
- Why scaled AI content can lead to "rank and tank" patterns
- How GEO agencies inflate AI visibility metrics
- Why many AI citation reports are misleading
- The risks of automated content generation
- Why Reddit strategies often fail
- How LLM training data differs from live web retrieval
- What influences ChatGPT without web search
- Why review sites like G2, Trustpilot, and Glassdoor matter
- How AI systems form opinions about brands
- Ethical vs risky GEO tactics
- Press release strategies that influence AI search
- How affiliate sites and listicles affect AI recommendations
- Why landing pages and product pages still work
- The role of video in AI search visibility
- Why branding and reputation matter more than most people realize
- How to evaluate GEO agencies before hiring them
- Questions every business owner should ask a GEO vendor
- What "scaled content abuse" means in Google's guidelines
- Why GEO is becoming a company-wide problem, not just an SEO problem
This episode is for:
- Founders
- Local businesses
- C-level executive
- SEO professionals
- Marketers
- SaaS companies
- Agencies
- Anyone trying to understand how AI search actually works
If you're interested in GEO, AEO, LLM optimization, SEO, AI search, ChatGPT optimization, or Google AI Overviews, this episode gives a grounded look at what is working right now and what is likely to fail over time.
⭐️ Harpreet Singh's Personal Site - https://harpsdigital.com 
⭐️ Harpreet on X - https://x.com/harpreetchatha_
⭐️ Harpreet's Newsletter - https://seoespresso.com
⭐️ Harpreet on LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/harpreetsingh8/
⭐️ Harpreet on TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@seoharp
⭐️ Harpreet on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@harpsdigital 
🚀 Edward's GEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/
💎 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 Is the popular way to do GEO actually safe?
00:30 The "scale content + match query fan-out" playbook and the Mount AI crash
02:40 Top-of-funnel traffic is vanity; LLMs use search APIs
05:40 Can you actually influence LLM training data?
10:00 Updating brand info on the sources LLMs trust (reviews, G2, alternatives pages)
14:20 How GEO and AEO agencies sell false case studies
17:40 Red flags when hiring a GEO vendor
23:40 How to vet a GEO company and read through "traffic is still up" claims
30:00 Google's scaled content abuse policy + OpenAI catching the listicle trick
33:20 Five questions to ask any GEO company (plus the grift vocabulary checklist)
36:40 How to actually influence training data: the 9-to-6-months case study
40:20 GEO is a company-wide effort, not a marketing task
43:40 Getting into the listicles and affiliate sites that get cited
47:40 Niche blogs and sponsored articles in major publications
51:00 Ethical GEO: product pages, category pages, landing pages
53:40 The cheap press release strategy ($5 AB Newswire experiment)
1:07:40 The web is being reshuffled - room for niche sites opening up
1:13:40 Why top-of-funnel content was a waste even before ChatGPT
1:18:40 Real GEO is 70 - 80% good SEO, plus affiliates, video, social, and Reddit
1:21:00 Concluding
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing

E1038: Breaking down one of the most dramatic SEO collapses in recent SaaS history.
ClickUp's blog went from 1.19 million organic visitors per month to just 28,000 in 15 months - a 97.6% decline.
This wasn't a single Google update. It wasn't just AI overviews. And it wasn't just "topical overreach."
It was a compounding series of strategic, editorial, and technical decisions that made each algorithm hit worse than the last.
We walk through the full timeline, what actually caused the collapse, and what serious SEO operators can learn from it.
This episode covers:
- The exact traffic timeline from peak to collapse
- Which Google updates hit - and why the damage compounded
- Why the blog fell 97.6% while the rest of the domain only dropped 27%
- Why backlinks were not the problem
- How ClickUp added 2,815 new posts during the decline
- The templated content structure repeated across 7,000+ URLs
- The promotional patterns that likely triggered quality classifiers
- Why core commercial keywords like "task management software" disappeared
- The technical SEO mistakes that were quietly hurting performance
- How Zapier ran a similar model but stabilized instead of collapsing
- Why AI Overviews do not fully explain what happened
- What this case reveals about intent, editorial integrity, and search alignment
We also compare ClickUp's ChatGPT alternatives page against Zapier's ranking page to show how editorial treatment, content structure, and intent matching can change outcomes - even when both companies promote their own products.
This is not a story about Google randomly punishing a brand.
It is a case study in what happens when:
- Conversion-first content overrides search intent
- Promotional density outweighs usefulness
- Scaling multiplies weaknesses
- Recovery efforts double down on the same structural problems
If you work in SEO, content strategy, or run a SaaS blog, this breakdown will help you understand:
- What not to industrialize
- How algorithm updates compound
- Why pruning sometimes matters more than publishing
- And how to align content with what searchers are actually trying to accomplish
⭐️ Full article - https://zkami.substack.com/p/how-clickups-blog-lost-976-of-its
🚀 Learn SEO for free - https://freeseoknowledge.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 ClickUp collapse as an SEO case study
00:20 The 97.6% traffic loss headline
01:14 Author's methodology and 2024 update timeline
03:11 AI cannibalization vs. lost commercial rankings
04:29 Blog punished, not the full domain
06:39 Why "topical overreach" doesn't fully explain it
08:21 Case study: the ChatGPT Alternatives page
09:38 Six versions of one URL
11:18 What the listicle pages look like
12:53 The 7,000-page identical skeleton and broken schema
13:46 ClickUp's response: 2,815 new posts during the crash
15:24 Paid traffic tapering and what ClickUp ranks for now
16:25 Where the traffic went - competitors, not to zero
18:08 Zapier comparison: same model, different outcome
19:14 Side-by-side: the two ChatGPT Alternatives articles
21:19 Narrowing the cause - what it isn't
22:18 Author's hypothesis: compounding failures
23:59 Edward's add: industrialized pogo-sticking
25:05 Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #performancemarketing

E1037: Breaking down one of the most effective SEO strategies on the internet: linkable assets.
These are simple tools, calculators, generators, databases, reports, studies, visualizers, and micro-apps that naturally earn backlinks because people ACTUALLY want to share them.
I walk through real examples of tiny websites and simple web apps that generated thousands - and in one case hundreds of thousands - of backlinks from major publications, blogs, newsletters, and social media shares.
Topics covered:
- How a simple "do nothing for two minutes" website earned 384,000 backlinks
- Why small utility apps outperform expensive link building campaigns
- How Canva's Color Palette Generator became a massive SEO asset
- How Sleepyti . me turned a sleep calculator into 35,000 backlinks
- Why linkable assets strengthen your entire website's SEO authority
- How to funnel SEO authority from viral pages into revenue-driving pages
- How to brainstorm linkable asset ideas with ChatGPT
- Linkable asset examples for pressure washing, banking law, and local businesses
- How to launch apps on Product Hunt and BetaList
- How to get journalists and bloggers to cover your tools
- How to use AI and vibe coding to build these projects quickly
⭐️ Prompt from the episode:
"Act as a world-class viral growth marketer and SEO strategist. Generate 15 simple, highly shareable 'linkable asset' ideas for the [NICHE] industry. Prioritize tools, calculators, generators, visualizers, quizzes, databases, maps, trackers, or micro-apps that journalists, bloggers, Reddit users, and social media creators would naturally link to. Focus on ideas that are cheap to build, instantly understandable, emotionally compelling, and capable of earning backlinks organically."
⭐️ The AI System to Find Relevant Journalists, Land Coverage, and Earn Ongoing High-Authority Backlinks - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/articles_ai-system-find-journalists-earn-high-authority-backlinks/
⭐️ Ep 908 - Vibe Coding for SEO: Building Rankable Apps, Tools, and Revenue in Minutes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cn03azU0GY
⭐️ Ep 1025 - He Ranked #1 on Google With 35 Words (No SEO) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsaZfnL7h50
⭐️ Ep 989 - How NapLab Built an SEO Moat (103,000 Keywords, No Shortcuts) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9vzdovTfmw
⭐️ No link building budget could buy these results - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/no-link-building-budget-could-buy-these-results/
🚀 Learn SEO for free - https://freeseoknowledge.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 Backlinks With Linkable Assets
01:49 Sleep Calculator Case Study
04:41 Canva Color Palette Generator
05:29 Do Nothing Viral Example
07:07 AI Prompt For Ideas
08:42 Launch And PR Distribution
09:43 Vibe Coding - Get Started
13:55 Wrap Up And Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#linkbuilding #backlinks #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1036: Breaking down practical SEO tactics that are working great and explaining why most people overcomplicate search engine optimization.
We go through a massive Reddit thread on "SEO hacks" and separate the good advice from the outdated spam tactics.
Topics covered:
- Why customer reviews are becoming one of the most powerful SEO assets
- How YouTube videos and video testimonials are getting cited by AI search tools
- The simple on-page SEO fundamentals that still matter
- Why intent-driven category pages are outperforming traditional SEO pages
- How to think about search intent before writing content
- The reason most AI-generated SEO content fails
- How to find keywords your competitors are ignoring
- Why comparison pages and "alternative" pages work so well
- Local SEO examples using semantic keywords and natural language
- Technical SEO basics that are still worth doing
- What "quality content" means in practice
- Why understanding how different people search changes your SEO strategy
We also cover:
- SEO myths that still circulate online
- Why buying backlinks is usually a waste of time
- How to structure pages for humans instead of algorithms
- The relationship between pogo-sticking and rankings
- How semantic relevance improves content performance
- What makes content more useful for both humans and AI systems
If you want to learn SEO that drives customers, leads, and conversions instead of vanity traffic, this episode will help.
🚀 Learn SEO for free - https://freeseoknowledge.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 SEO Hacks Thread Intro
00:09 Reviews Everywhere Strategy
01:01 Video Reviews for AI Search
01:39 Ecommerce Taxonomy Pages
02:21 Intent Driven Categories Win
03:05 Hidden Text Joke Warning
03:51 On Page Keyword Basics
04:23 Quality Content and Pogo Sticking
04:37 Search Intent Writing Exercise
05:48 How Different People Search
06:46 Technical SEO and Easy Keywords
07:40 Authority and Trust Signals
08:26 Backlink Joke and Don't Buy These
08:34 NLP and Local Intent Example
10:21 UGC Reviews and Communities
10:39 Competitor Alternatives Pages
11:44 Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #entrepreneurship

E1035: Breaking down the risks of using AI to fully automate SEO.
The man… the myth… the legend… Gagan Ghotra returns to the podcast!!!
We get into why so many founders, startups, and small businesses are being tempted by viral posts promising that Claude, ChatGPT, or other AI tools can replace an SEO team, an agency, or a group of writers.
The problem is that a lot of these workflows turn into scaled content abuse. They create hundreds or thousands of pages quickly, often without enough original information, human review, or real value per page. The traffic can go up fast, but the drop can be just as fast.
We talk about:
- What scaled content abuse means
- Why Google introduced the policy
- How AI SEO pages can grow for a few months before falling hard
- Why "fire your SEO team and use AI" advice is dangerous
- The difference between programmatic SEO and scaled AI content
- When scaling content can be useful
- Why unique data, original opinions, and internal knowledge matter
- How Google might detect bad scaled content
- Why engagement signals, brand signals, and social presence may matter more over time
- What happened with Shopify's scaled content issues
- Why VC-backed startups are especially vulnerable to AI SEO hype
- How short-term growth can hurt fundraising if the site gets hit later
- Why boring local businesses may be able to use AI differently than competitive startups
- Why social profiles, PR, and brand recognition can help support SEO
- What companies should be doing now if they want to win search over the next three years
- Why brand building and SEO are becoming harder to separate
- How to use AI as part of the writing process without letting it take over the whole page
Gagan's main point is simple: AI can help with SEO, but it should not replace judgment, original information, or human editing.
If you are building a real company, your domain is an asset. Burning it for a few months of traffic is not the same as building a search channel that lasts.
⭐️ Gagan Ghotra on 𝕏 - https://x.com/gaganghotra_
⭐️ Gagan Ghotra on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gagan-ghotra/
⭐️ Gagan Ghotra's website - https://gaganghotra.com/
🚀 Edward's SEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/
💎 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 AI SEO Automation Hype
01:51 Scaled Content Abuse Explained
03:43 Using AI With Human Writers
08:09 Programmatic SEO Vs Abuse
10:00 How Google Detects Scaling
13:43 Brand Signals And PR Buffer
15:05 Shopify Case Study Fallout
17:22 SMBs Vs VC Startups Risks
22:07 Boom Bust And Fundraising
28:32 Churn And Burn Ethics
31:02 Social Profiles As Trust
34:34 AI Tools For Omnichannel
41:35 Winners Build Brands
48:08 Wrap Up And Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #seo