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 seeing across client accounts, ranking tests, Google Business Profiles, local packs, AI-generated recommendations, website content, reviews, links, and conversion rates.
Topics covered:
- How large language models evaluate local businesses and decide which companies to cite
- Why local businesses may need content that clearly explains pricing, processes, outcomes, and service details
- How awards and industry-specific directories can influence AI recommendations
- Why winning an award is not enough unless the business also promotes it clearly on its website
- How AI-powered local packs may reduce the importance of Google review volume and frequency
- Why Yelp, Facebook, Reddit, and other third-party platforms are becoming more important for local visibility
- How AI systems read the actual language inside reviews instead of only looking at star ratings
- Why businesses should encourage customers to describe their experience and outcome in their reviews
- The risks of asking for, buying, or incentivizing reviews on different platforms
- Why fake listings, fake reviews, rank-and-rent listings, and other forms of Google Business Profile spam continue to create problems for legitimate businesses
- How business hours can affect local rankings and why Google's written guidelines do not always match what works in practice
- Whether keyword-stuffed Google Business Profile names will continue working as AI local results become more common
- Why improving a local business website's design can increase leads without rebuilding the entire website
- How AI tools can help businesses improve landing pages, buttons, coupons, images, page layouts, and conversion rates
- How Joy and Caleb use AI to produce content without publishing generic rewrites of competing pages
- Why original interviews, customer stories, project details, pricing information, measurements, timelines, and outcomes make content more useful
- Why publishing dozens or hundreds of similar AI-generated pages can become a liability
- How to approach location pages, service-area pages, and multi-location business websites
- When separate location pages compete against each other and when combining locations may produce better results
- Why press releases appear to have lost much of their previous influence on rankings and AI citations
- Why exact-match anchor text, scaled link building, and guest posting have become increasingly risky
- Which local link-building methods still work, including sponsorships, charities, community organizations, events, youth sports, and relevant award sites
- What to examine when a website's organic traffic has been declining for several years
- How excessive informational content, weak search intent, and expansion beyond a site's authority can damage performance
- Why some websites need content consolidation, pruning, restructuring, or partial rebuilding
- How local rank maps and Google Search Console data can reveal missing topical and geographic relevance
- How Google Business Profile categories and services can guide website structure and internal linking
- Where Joy and Caleb disagree about URLs, internal links, location pages, and duplicate content
- Why CTR manipulation and driving-direction manipulation may work temporarily but can create serious long-term risks
- Why tactics that stop working as soon as you stop paying for them are difficult to build a reliable business around
This conversation is for local business owners, SEO consultants, agency owners, marketers, lawyers, home-service companies, and anyone trying to understand how local search is changing.
⭐️ Joy Hawkin's Agency - Sterling Sky: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/ 
⭐️ Joy Hawkin's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/SterlingSkyInc 
⭐️ Joy Hawkin's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyhawkins/ 
⭐️ Local Search Forum - https://localsearchforum.com/ 
⭐️ Caleb Ulku on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@calebulku 
⭐️ Caleb Ulku - https://calebulku.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 Meet the Local SEO Pros
00:34 Getting Recognized IRL
02:02 Local SEO in the LLM Era
04:31 Awards as AI Signals
07:52 Paying for Credibility
12:34 Reviews Beyond Google
15:47 Yelp and Reddit Trust
18:50 Spam and Fake Listings
23:40 Loopholes That May Die
25:50 Big Missed Opportunities
31:35 AI Content That Ranks
36:38 AI Content Scaling Trap
37:12 Unique Content vs Relevance
38:24 Citygate Pages Risk
39:53 Multiple Locations Strategy
41:14 Press Releases Decline
43:08 Anchor Text Crackdown
43:55 Local Link Building Wins
48:46 Traffic Drops and Audits
55:22 GBP Landing Page Fixes
58:03 Citations and CTR Hype
01:02:27 Fake Reviews and Takedowns
01:05:44 Site Structure and URLs
01:10:00 30 Day Action Plan
01:11:25 Wrap Up and Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#localseo #localsearchengineoptimization #localmarketing #seo

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 act on some of its most important findings.
We break down Google's different index tiers, why a backlink's value may depend on where the linking page sits in the index, and why common third-party metrics such as Domain Authority and Domain Rating may not tell you what Google actually values.
Mike also explains how Google uses vector embeddings to understand pages, passages, websites, authors, brands, and entities. This changes how marketers should think about relevance, authority, mentions, links, and content creation.
We also go deep into AI search and how platforms such as ChatGPT retrieve and evaluate information.
Topics covered include:
- What Google's API leak confirmed about ranking systems
- Why Mike believes the SEO industry failed to adapt
- How Google separates content into different index tiers
- Why links from pages with rankings and traffic may carry more value
- Why Domain Authority and Domain Rating can be misleading
- How vector embeddings help Google understand relevance
- Why brand mentions can sometimes matter more than backlinks
- The difference between optimizing for prompts and query fan-outs
- How ChatGPT breaks a prompt into multiple search queries
- Why comprehensive content can create more chances to appear in AI answers
- How to inspect the searches ChatGPT performs behind the scenes
- Why AI search should not be treated as another version of traditional SEO
- How brands should measure AI visibility, citations, accuracy, and performance
- Why Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, earned media, and your website all matter
- How content format affects whether AI systems select your page or video
- Why starting your own subreddit may help protect your brand's position
- The biggest mistake companies make with AI-generated content
- Why publishing an article from a single prompt often produces weak results
- How human review, original sources, structured prompts, and subject experts improve AI content
- Why Google may rely more on user behavior than unreliable AI-content detection
- Which older SEO tactics are returning because of AI search
- What "relevance engineering" means
- Why future marketing teams may need SEO, PR, UX, content, data, and engineering skills
- Why SEOs should learn to build tools and test AI platforms directly
Mike also shares a specific AI search case study involving 499 response codes.
His team found that ChatGPT was abandoning page requests because the client's website took too long to respond. After identifying the problem in the site's log files and improving response speed, the client's AI search visibility increased by roughly 300% over three months.
Mike's practical recommendation is simple:
Check your server logs for 499 errors. Identify the affected URLs. Improve page speed, especially time to first byte. According to Mike, fixing this problem can improve AI search performance in 30 days or less.
This conversation is for SEOs, founders, content teams, PR professionals, and marketing leaders trying to understand how discovery is changing across Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Bing, YouTube, Reddit, and other search surfaces.
⭐️ Mike King's agency, iPullRank - https://ipullrank.com 
⭐️ Mike King's music - https://verywellversed.com 
⭐️ Mike King on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkingphilly/ 
⭐️ Mike King on 𝕏 - https://x.com/iPullRankAgency 
💎 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 Welcome and Setup
00:17 Google Leak Takeaways
05:44 Index Buckets Explained
07:50 Embeddings and Entities
09:19 Mentions vs Links
11:51 Earning Mentions Tactics
14:27 Black Mirror Launch
16:05 Seeding Clips and Ads
19:15 Leak Frenzy and Twiddlers
22:14 Optimizing for AI Search
23:50 Inspecting Query Fanout
26:18 Fanouts vs Keywords Strategy
30:01 C-Suite Measurement Framework
31:05 Input Metrics That Matter
31:43 Why It Is Not Just SEO
33:01 Tooling For Measurement
33:38 Query Fan Out Research
34:54 RAG Pipeline Visibility Gaps
37:06 Who Should Lead GEO
38:46 Pilot Win Fixing 499s
42:09 Getting Into Training Data
44:22 Relevance Engineering Explained
48:04 Content Formats For AI Search
49:29 Using Reddit Without Astroturfing
51:58 AI Content Mistakes To Avoid
54:10 How Google Judges AI Content
57:09 Future Of Niche Publishing
59:01 Unpopular SEO Take And Skills
01:02:44 One Action For 90 Days
01:03:04 Wrap Up And Where To Follow
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#seo #searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization

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 Google Search Console to understand what Google is actually testing, which queries matter, when pages are competing against each other, and how experienced SEOs diagnose ranking problems.
Topics covered include:
- Why clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position can be misleading
- How to analyze Search Console at the page and query level
- Why average metrics often hide what's really happening
- Understanding Google's ranking and testing process
- How Google experiments with pages before rankings stabilize
- Why keyword-level analysis is more valuable than site-wide metrics
- Identifying keyword cannibalization using Search Console
- When keyword cannibalization is worth fixing - and when it isn't
- How to determine whether a ranking problem is caused by authority, relevance, or user behavior
- Why page titles past page 1 rarely improve CTR
- How to use Search Console alongside a SERP tracking tool
- Looking for patterns in page history instead of reacting to daily fluctuations
- Why Google hides parts of Search Console query data
- How Google groups searches into keyword clusters
- Using Search Console to spot intent mismatches
- Why some pages rank for keywords you never targeted
- How to decide when to republish, retarget, or rewrite content
- Building a keyword universe instead of tracking vanity metrics
- Why CEOs and marketing leaders should know their most valuable keywords
The breakdown also covers:
- Google's testing periods for new pages
- Search intent versus page intent
- Topical authority and relevance
- Search Console filters and query analysis
- SERP reports and keyword tracking
- Common mistakes beginners make when evaluating SEO performance
- How experienced SEOs interpret ranking volatility
- Google Knowledge Panels and entity updates
- Why EEAT discussions are often misunderstood
- What YMYL actually means in practice
If you've ever looked at your Google Search Console dashboard and wondered whether your SEO is actually working, this episode explains what to focus on - and what to ignore.
⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid 
⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/ 
⭐️ David Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@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 Welcome Back David
00:35 SEO Castle Metaphor
00:48 Reddit GSC Metrics
02:34 Why Macro Stats Mislead
03:55 Keywords And SERP Reports
06:30 Click Zone And Titles
07:52 Creating A New Query
10:54 Regex And Query Filters
12:37 Knowledge Panel Name Edit
17:10 Hidden Queries In GSC
19:29 Google As CTR Engine
22:02 Testing And SERP Fluidity
25:24 Why GSC Data Lags
27:30 Finding Cannibalization
31:36 Fixing SEO Expert Overlap
35:37 When Cannibalization Matters
35:50 Diagnosing With SERP Tools
39:23 GSC Drops And Page Deltas
41:55 Rebuild Pages And Retarget
43:04 Newbie GSC Starting Points
45:28 Keyword Research And Relevance
48:09 What Data To Share Online
49:49 Keyword Universe For Leaders
52:38 SERP Fluctuations And Alerts
55:31 EEAT And YMYL Reality Check
01:05:17 Historical Trends And Tagging
01:10:49 Debates LLMs And Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#seo #googlesearchconsole #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing

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 properly optimized, and few competing websites were directly targeting the query. However, my website did not have enough topical authority when the page was first published.
The page briefly reached the number-one position about a year and a half later, but it eventually disappeared from the index again.
In March 2025, I republished the same content under a slightly different URL and redirected the old URL to the new one. Less than a month later, the page was ranking number one for its target keyword. It has remained in that position since.
The content did not need to be rewritten. The main change was the URL.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why a page may fail to rank even when it targets a low-competition keyword
- How your website's topical authority can affect a page when it is first published
- Why an older page may continue to underperform after your site becomes more authoritative
- How publishing the page under a new URL can lead to a new evaluation
- Why the old URL should be redirected to the new URL
- How to determine whether a keyword is genuinely being targeted by competing websites
- Why keyword tracking is necessary for finding pages that should be performing better
- How organic clicks and relevant backlinks can strengthen your authority within a topic
- When this method may be worth testing on one of your own pages
The basic process discussed in the episode is:
- Find a page targeting a keyword that should be attainable
- Confirm that the keyword appears in your title and URL
- Check whether competing pages are directly targeting the same keyword
- Confirm that the page has consistently failed to stay indexed or rank
- Create a new URL by making a small, relevant change to the slug
- Publish the existing content under the new URL
- Add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL
- Track the target keyword to see whether the new page begins ranking
This is not about changing URLs across your entire website. It is a specific test for pages that appear to be properly optimized but were originally published before the website had enough relevance or authority in the topic.
The episode also includes an excerpt from a previous conversation with David Quade explaining why Google treats each URL as a separate page and why a new slug can give the content a new start.
⭐️ The Magic Pill of SEO: Topical Authority - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/magic-pill-seo-topical-authority/ 
⭐️ 10-Minute SEO Hack That Took My Page from Invisible to #1 on Google - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/10-minute-seo-hack-that-took-my-page-from-invisible-to-1-on-google/ 
⭐️ Ep 846 - The SEO Playbook That Actually Works: PageRank, Topical Authority & Real Results - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eK5-TpaiPw 
💎 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 Indexing Problem Setup
00:44 Republish With New URL
01:44 Topical Authority Explained
02:36 Case Study Timeline
03:36 David Quaid Google Canon
05:17 New Slug Fresh Start
05:34 Track Keywords And Republish
06:17 Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #technicalseo #digitalmarketing

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
- Audience feedback was positive
But the video still became the channel's worst-performing upload since 2013.
YouTube later confirmed that its automated systems had incorrectly identified the channel's content as AI-generated material.
We look at why that matters for SEO.
Google and YouTube are both part of Alphabet, and both platforms are working to detect large-scale AI spam. Research connected to YouTube has described systems that can analyze patterns across text, media, accounts, and publishing networks.
These systems look for signals such as:
- Repeated AI-generated text patterns
- Similar text embeddings across many accounts
- Shared templates and sentence structures
- Repeated terms and phrasing
- Coordinated publishing behavior
- Groups of sites or accounts using similar content systems
- Poor engagement signals across a larger network
The concern is that these systems will not always distinguish between low-quality automated content and legitimate work.
A real creator, publisher, or business could be affected because its content happens to share patterns with a larger group of AI-generated pages.
We cover:
- What happened to Kurzgesagt
- Why YouTube reduced the reach of the channel's video
- How automated AI detection can make mistakes
- Why this incident matters for Google Search
- How Google may identify scaled AI content
- Why common AI writing tools can create detectable patterns
- How default prompts and templates can make websites look similar
- Why an entire group of sites could be judged together
- How user behavior may influence spam classification
- What website owners should review before the next major update
- What to do if legitimate content is caught in an algorithmic crackdown
- Why continuing to publish and improve still matters after a traffic loss
Questions to ask about your own content:
- Does it follow Google's spam policies?
- Does it give the searcher the information they expected?
- Does it sound like it was written for a specific audience?
- Does it contain repeated generic phrases found across many other websites?
- Are you publishing large amounts of content with the same structure?
- Are you relying on default AI settings without substantial editing?
- Are there obvious AI writing patterns throughout the site?
- Are users clicking your pages and quickly returning to the search results?
- Does the site contain original experience, examples, opinions, or research?
- Would the content still be useful if search engines did not exist?
This does not mean every site using AI will be penalized.
The larger risk is producing content at scale that looks, reads, and performs like content from low-quality automated networks.
The goal should be to create pages that are useful, specific, accurate, and clearly made for the person searching.
I also discuss the HouseFresh recovery. The site lost most of its Google traffic after the Helpful Content Update, continued publishing and marketing its work, and later grew well beyond its previous traffic level.
An algorithmic loss can be severe, but it does not always have to be permanent.
⭐️ Ep 1110 - Google's Next SEO Apocalypse: The Scaled AI Content Crackdown Is Coming - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w66ME9-IRQ 
⭐️ Kurzgesagt writeup - https://x.com/Kurz_Gesagt/status/2083191397981561232 
⭐️ Google Research Shows How AI Spam Can Be Detected - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-generated-ai-detected/579987/ 
⭐️ Glenn Gabe - https://x.com/glenngabe/status/2067951984187949532 
⭐️ Ep 1083 - Google's New AI Spam Detector Could Wipe Out Entire SEO Networks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I78IQS99EwU 
⭐️ Ep 999 - How to Humanize AI Content (Before It Destroys Your SEO) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8CoElpldtk 
💎 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 Crackdown Warning
00:34 Kurzgesagt Gets Flagged
01:38 YouTube Confirms Bug
02:34 Why It Matters for SEO
03:22 How AI Spam Is Detected
04:51 Protect Your Content
06:48 If You Get Hit, Persist
07:56 Consistency Mindset
10:17 Final Thanks and Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#seo #searchengineoptimization #googleupdate #growthhacking