The Edward Show

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

E1034: David McSweeney breaks down what actually drives visibility in AI search - and what is a complete waste of time.
The conversation starts with a viral experiment claiming that a blank website ranked in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. From there, Edward and David dig into how AI systems really parse content, why that experiment was misunderstood, and what it reveals about how search is evolving.
They challenge a lot of current narratives around "GEO" (Generative Engine Optimization), structured data, and AI visibility - and explain where the industry is getting it wrong.
Topics covered:
- Why the "blank page ranking #1" experiment doesn't prove what people think
- How AI tools actually read and retrieve content from web pages
- The real impact (and limits) of schema, structured data, and LLMs.txt
- Why most "AI SEO" services are repackaging old ideas or selling noise
- The difference between correlation studies and real evidence in SEO
- How ChatGPT and similar systems pull, parse, and use information
- Why prompt tracking is unreliable and often meaningless
- What actually influences whether your content appears in AI answers
- The risks of chasing short-term tactics like cloaking, spammy listicles, and Reddit manipulation
- Why traditional SEO fundamentals still matter more than ever
- A practical approach to improving visibility in AI-generated answers
- How to think about measuring success when AI traffic is still small
They also discuss broader shifts in search:
- Whether Google search quality is improving or declining
- The rise of user-generated content and platforms like Reddit
- How AI is changing content creation - and why most AI content underperforms
- Why authenticity, clarity, and trust will matter more over time
This episode is a direct response to the hype around AI search. It focuses on what can actually move the needle for businesses, rather than what sounds impressive on LinkedIn.
⭐️ Busting The GEO Jargon: Why You're (Probably) Overcomplicating AI Search - https://queryburst.com/blog/ai-search/
⭐️ David McSweeney on 𝕏 - https://x.com/top5seo
⭐️ David McSweeney on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mcsweeney-79840154/
⭐️ David McSweeney's company - QueryBurst - https://queryburst.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 SEO Myth Viral Post
01:14 Blank Page Claim Debunked
05:39 Konami Code Easter Egg
10:17 Schema LLMs.txt Reality
13:50 Does Schema Help AI
21:47 The Great GEO Grift
32:23 Markdown Cloaking Risks
39:35 Reddit Listicle Spam
46:06 Demand Proof From GEO
50:21 Avoiding GEO Snake Oil
58:50 PR Links And Affiliates
01:03:06 Why Grifters Rank
01:05:12 Prompting for AI search experts
01:06:38 Product quality vs marketing
01:07:37 Self promotional listicles debate
01:11:49 Google priorities and AI overviews
01:19:33 Measuring AI search success
01:24:15 Reverse engineering AI citations
01:33:58 LLMs limits and extractable writing
01:37:46 SEO origin story and experiments
01:48:48 Queryburst platform explained
01:54:47 Future SEO skills and wrap up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #seo

E1033: Breaking down a dense set of notes from the BrightonSEO conference and turning them into a practical playbook for modern SEO.
These are real observations about what you have to do to win search and conversions - especially with AI, generative engine optimization (GEO), and the growing importance of conversion-focused content.
I recorded this episode from a rooftop in Manhattan, and we cover everything from technical SEO foundations to how AI systems actually discover, evaluate, and cite content.
If you care about getting customers from search - not just traffic - this episode will give you a clear direction.
What we cover:
- The modern SEO framework: technical SEO as the foundation, content and PR as the catalyst, social media as the amplifier, and GEO as expanding your presence across AI systems
- A decision framework before creating content: demand, winnability, indexability, visibility, differentiation, and trust
- How AI search works: query fan-outs, partial page reading, citation behavior, and why influence happens at the prompt level
- Key data points shaping strategy: AI overviews reducing clicks, more journeys involving AI, homepages getting more AI traffic, and low overlap with top Google rankings
- Content strategy shifts: optimize for passages, answer one question per paragraph, use neutral language, and focus on problems instead of keywords
- Conversion-focused SEO: why bottom-of-funnel pages matter, how intent-driven pages perform, and how to structure pages to convert
- AI and content quality: using LLMs effectively, spotting mistakes, and validating outputs with multiple systems
- Brand and trust: the role of reviews, sentiment, consistency, and where AI pulls brand signals from
- E-commerce and AI search: what gets products cited, how to structure product pages, and the importance of attributes and Q&A
- Practical takeaways: mining fan-out queries, aligning navigation with customer language, focusing on leading metrics, and combining engineering with storytelling
This episode is packed. You may want to slow it down or take notes.
Subscribe if you want daily episodes on SEO, AI, and building a business through search.
⭐️ Malte Landwehr's write-up - https://x.com/MalteLandwehr/status/2050268682115272994
🚀 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 BrightonSEO Notes
00:41 GEO KPI Checklist
01:16 GEO Like Poker
01:52 Indexability And Speed
02:29 Intent Driven Categories
03:17 AI Visibility Mindset
03:47 Using LLMs Wisely
04:44 AI Mode Metrics
05:36 Passage Level Optimization
06:07 Grounding And Fan-outs
06:36 AI Overviews And BOFU
07:37 Trust And Disinformation
07:58 Conversational Search Future
09:19 Brand Terms And Navigation
10:20 Ecommerce Content Playbook
11:10 Content That Gets Cited
11:36 AI Shopping Tactics
13:00 Grow And Protect Brand
13:29 Wrap Up And Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #ecommerce #seo

E1032: Breaking down new research analyzing 1.4 million ChatGPT prompts to understand a simple but important question: why does ChatGPT cite some pages and ignore others?
This study, conducted by Ahrefs, gives one of the clearest looks yet into how ChatGPT selects sources, what influences citation likelihood, and how you can position your content to be included.
We walk through the key findings, what they mean in practice, and how they connect to real SEO strategy.
What you'll learn in this episode:
- How ChatGPT retrieves dozens of sources but only cites about half
- The role of titles, snippets, and URLs before your page is even opened
- Why semantic relevance to "fan-out queries" is one of the strongest ranking factors
- What fan-out queries are and how to find them yourself
- Why most cited sources come from traditional search results (and what that means for SEO)
- The surprising role of Reddit: heavily used for context, rarely cited
- Citation breakdown across sources like search, news, Reddit, YouTube, and academia
- Why natural language URLs and keyword alignment increase your chances of being cited
- The relationship between content freshness and citation likelihood
- Why older, more established pages often beat newer ones within the same query
- How news content is treated differently, with freshness acting as a tiebreaker
- Why SEO landing pages and product pages are among the most cited content types
We also cover a practical method to uncover the exact queries ChatGPT uses behind the scenes, and how to use those insights to structure your content.
If you're trying to get your site, product pages, or content cited in AI-generated answers, this episode gives you a clear framework based on real data.
⭐️ Why ChatGPT Cites One Page Over Another (Study of 1.4M Prompts) - https://ahrefs.com/blog/why-chatgpt-cites-pages/
🚀 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 Why Citations Vary
00:34 Gatekeeping Before Reading
01:35 Study Setup and Goals
02:02 Where Sources Come From
04:54 Reddit Not Credited!?
05:31 Semantic Scoring and Titles
07:30 Find ChatGPT Fanout Queries
09:05 Freshness Versus Relevance
11:19 What It Means to Be Citable
11:55 SEO Pages Win Citations
15:19 Wrap Up and Goodbye 
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1031: Wil Reynolds, founder of Seer Interactive, joins the show to break down what's actually working in SEO right now - and what most people are getting completely wrong.
This conversation goes beyond tactics. Wil explains why chasing shortcuts, automations, and "quick wins" is a losing strategy, and why the future belongs to people who understand how humans think, search, and make decisions.
We talk about AI, agents, brand, keyword strategy, client work, and the mindset required to stay relevant in a rapidly changing industry.
In this:
- Why most SEOs are focused on the wrong things
- The difference between tenure and tenacity in SEO
- What's actually changing with AI search and LLMs
- Why "talking to real humans" is still the biggest edge
- How to find keywords that actually drive revenue (not vanity traffic)
- Why ranking #1 can still be a waste of time
- The problem with listicles, loopholes, and copycat strategies
- How to use PPC data to validate SEO decisions
- What real marketing looks like in a search-driven world
- How brand perception impacts both Google and AI results
- Wil's experiments with LLMs and how fast results can change
- Why most agencies lose trust (and how to avoid it)
- The role of agents and automation in modern workflows
- Why internal linking and SEO processes are becoming fully automatable
- The importance of playing the long game vs chasing short-term wins
Key ideas from Wil:
- Just because you rank doesn't mean you'll win customers
- SEO without understanding people is incomplete
- If your strategy depends on a loophole, it won't last
- Brand matters more than ever in AI-driven search
- The fastest wins are often the least durable
- The best insights come from watching real users, not tools
- You have to earn trust, not automate it
⭐️ Wil Reynolds' agency - Seer Interactive - https://www.seerinteractive.com/
⭐️ Wil Reynolds' 𝕏 - https://x.com/wilreynolds
⭐️ Wil Reynolds' LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilreynolds/
⭐️ Wil Reynolds' YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/wilreynolds
⭐️ My mom passed away, what kind of son was I to her? - https://wilreynolds.medium.com/my-mom-passed-away-what-kind-of-son-was-i-to-her-af28b8e40c3e
🚀 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 Meet Wil Reynolds
00:32 SEO Origins and Tenacity
05:18 Talk to Real Searchers
10:51 Intent and Keyword ROI
15:21 Listicles Versus Strategy
18:44 Buyer Psychology Reading List
21:28 AI Agents and Orchestrators
28:05 Internal Linking Automation
34:10 Meaningful Impact and Teaching
42:17 Creative Campaign Sex Toy Day
49:43 Influencing LLMs and Reputation
01:02:45 Long Game SEO Mindset
01:09:30 Accountability Beyond SEO
01:15:18 Closing Thoughts and Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking