The Edward Show

E1107: E-commerce SEO is no longer only about ranking product and category pages in Google. AI search tools are also surfacing filtered URLs, faceted navigation pages, intent-based collections, and detailed product pages for highly specific buying queries.
I speak with Gagan Ghotra and Harpreet Singh about how e-commerce brands can improve visibility in Google, ChatGPT, AI Overviews, and AI Mode without creating crawl problems, duplicate pages, or large amounts of low-value content.
We explain how ChatGPT can surface faceted URLs for searches such as TVs under a certain price, products in a specific size, or items that match multiple attributes. The discussion also covers why some of these pages may appear in AI search even when they are canonicalized, noindexed, or not designed to rank in traditional search.
Topics covered:
- How faceted navigation works on e-commerce sites
- Why filtered URLs are appearing in AI search results
- How ChatGPT query fan-out creates detailed buying searches
- When faceted navigation helps SEO and when it causes crawl waste
- How to manage indexation, canonicals, robots.txt, and duplicate URL combinations
- Why Wayfair's keyword and search pages are worth studying
- How intent-based category pages can capture searches that standard product categories miss
- Why pages such as airport outfits, graduation dresses, products for sleep, and holiday sale pages can convert well
- When scaling category and collection pages becomes risky
- How much unique content similar collection pages actually need
- Why site size, authority, internal links, demand, and revenue data should guide page creation
- How scaled AI content can damage the wider site, not only the blog
- What e-commerce brands can learn from major organic traffic declines
- Why product options hidden behind JavaScript should also be explained in visible text
- How to write useful collection-page copy without keyword stuffing
- Where collection-page content should appear in relation to the product grid
- How FAQs, comparisons, buying guidance, and product education can support conversions
- How to optimize product descriptions, product variants, specifications, certifications, and use cases
- How to write unique image alt text for different product images and angles
- Why related-product sections should contain genuinely related items
- How to use internal site-search data to find bottom-of-funnel page ideas
- Why Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and other sale pages should stay live year-round
- How Google Merchant Center is beginning to report product-feed performance in AI search
The episode focuses on a practical balance: create pages that match real customer demand, explain products clearly, and help people make buying decisions, while avoiding uncontrolled URL growth and content created only to increase page count.
⭐️ Ep 1081 - Google Merchant Center Mistakes Killing Your Ecommerce Revenue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIyAv_Li1qA 
⭐️ 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/ 
⭐️ 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 
💎 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 Ecommerce SEO kickoff
00:16 Facets in AI search
01:09 Faceted navigation basics
02:35 SEO risks and crawl control
03:25 Why facets get cited
06:22 Wayfair sitemap strategy
08:40 How to implement facets
10:41 AI partnerships and JS limits
15:24 Query fan out investigation
20:33 Traffic drops case studies
26:42 Meaningful category page copy
30:30 Where to place the text
31:53 Safe URLs and takeaways
33:47 Intent Category Pages
36:01 Supplement Intent Collections
36:57 Granular Products Blogging
40:16 Long Term Content ROI
41:39 Scaling Category Variations
47:03 Internal Links Risk
48:52 Evergreen Sale Pages
52:43 Merchant Center AI Report
54:21 Product Page Essentials
57:09 Alt Text Related Products
01:01:39 CRO Copy And Keywords
01:04:12 Navigation Architecture Fixes
01:06:03 Authority And Backlinks
01:11:34 Digital PR Link Tactics
01:13:47 Final Wrap And Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #ecommerceseo #ecommerce #seo

E1105: Google is not indexing every page it discovers.
As the web keeps growing, Google has to decide which pages are worth crawling regularly, storing in its index, and showing in search results. That means weak site structure, accidental noindex tags, and poor internal linking can make it harder for your important pages to get indexed.
We break down three simple SEO mistakes shared by Mike Friedman (SEO Pub) that can reduce crawling and indexation across your website.
You'll learn:
- Why you should be careful about adding noindex tags to category pages
- How noindexed category pages can make it harder for Google to discover new content
- Why internal links help Google understand which pages matter most
- What it tells Google when an important page only has one or two internal links
- How crawl depth affects how frequently pages are crawled
- Why your most important pages should ideally be reachable within three clicks of the homepage
- How to use high-authority pages on your site to help Google find deeper pages
- How to check crawl depth inside Screaming Frog
- How accidental noindex tags commonly appear during website redesigns
- How to quickly identify non-indexable pages that return a 200 status code
- Why duplicate or undifferentiated content may struggle to remain indexed
- How stronger page titles can help your result stand out and earn more clicks
Before changing your site structure, also check the basic technical problems that frequently prevent indexing:
- Review your robots.txt file for accidental blocks
- Check your WordPress SEO plugin for unintended noindex settings
- Make sure staging-site noindex tags were removed when the new site went live
- Crawl your website and confirm that every intentionally published page is indexable
- Look for important pages buried too deeply inside your site
A page can be technically accessible without being treated as important.
If your own website rarely links to a page, Google may crawl it less frequently. If it takes nine clicks to reach from your homepage, Google may treat it as less important than a page linked directly from your main navigation or strongest pages.
Good indexing starts with making your content easy to find.
Your important SEO pages should be:
- Unique enough to add something useful
- Internally linked from relevant pages
- Close to your homepage or other high-authority pages
- Free from accidental crawling and indexing restrictions
- Part of a clear site structure that search engines can follow
⭐️ The article - https://theseopub.com/3-simple-ways-to-improve-the-indexing-of-your-webpages/ 
⭐️ Ep 779 - "Beating Google with AI SEO, Brand Signals & Obnoxiously Long Titles" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkTnuOxCYT4 
⭐️ Ep 951 - "Why Google Crawls Your Page but Refuses to Index It (And How to Fix It)" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahNhcLDa1LQ 
💎 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 Indexing Got Harder
00:36 Common Sense Indexing Checks
01:26 Avoid Duplicate Content
01:42 Titles That Earn Clicks
02:49 Robots Txt Pitfalls
03:27 Accidental Noindex Tags
04:22 Tip One Index Categories
05:23 Tip Two Internal Linking
05:45 Tip Three Crawl Depth
07:25 Wrap Up
08:32 Final Thanks and Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #technicalseo #digitalmarketing

E1106: Pedro Dias spent six years working in Google Search Quality, where he investigated web spam, reviewed search results, and helped identify quality problems across different markets.
In this episode, Pedro explains how Google evaluates websites, why many popular SEO metrics are misleading, and what site owners should focus on if they want stronger rankings.
We begin with the LinkedIn post that caused Google's AI Overview to describe Pedro as the "world's most renowned AI visibility expert." Pedro explains why the result was partly a joke, but also why his experience, authority, and consistent online positioning likely helped Google make that connection.
We also discuss what his work inside Google actually involved. Spam detection was not simply about finding one suspicious pattern and applying a penalty. Google had to consider intent, context, false positives, user satisfaction, language markets, and the quality of the search results that would remain.
We cover:
- What Pedro did as a Google Search Quality Analyst
- How Google investigated spam, abuse, and low-quality results
- Why suspicious patterns do not automatically prove manipulation
- Why search quality decisions were often handled case by case
- How Google's processes may have changed with AI
- What "quality content" actually means
- Why longer content is not automatically better
- Why people scan a page before deciding whether to read it
- How design, structure, and presentation affect perceived quality
- Why content quality declines as user expectations increase
- Why Google is moving away from repetitive commodity content
- What makes firsthand experience and original information more valuable
- How brands become associated with specific topics in Google
- Why consistency strengthens topical authority
- Why trying to cover every topic can weaken a website
- Why backlinks still matter in 2026
- Why referral traffic and qualified leads matter more than link scores
- Why Domain Rating, Domain Authority, and other third-party metrics can mislead you
- How supposedly natural link building can still look manipulated
- Why content at scale repeatedly causes problems
- The difference between controlled programmatic SEO and uncontrolled AI content
- How to use AI for structured tasks where the output can be checked
- Why producing more pages is not automatically better
- What companies can do to improve visibility in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews
- Why websites must be crawlable, fast, retrievable, and internally consistent
- Why schema, JSON-LD, and LLMs.txt may not work the way many SEOs claim
- Whether GEO requires different tactics from traditional SEO
- Whether semantic HTML helps search engines understand a page
- The technical SEO problems Pedro repeatedly finds on large websites
- Why architecture, click depth, server speed, and caching still matter
- The common SEO audit recommendations that waste time without improving traffic
Pedro also gives listeners three practical assignments:
- One SEO action to complete tomorrow
- One controlled AI project to build over the next 30 days
- One capability SEOs should develop over the next year
This conversation explains Google rankings from the perspective of someone who worked inside Search Quality and then spent years applying those lessons to real websites.
⭐️ Pedro Dias on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedrodias/ 
⭐️ Pedro Dias on 𝕏 - https://x.com/pedrodias 
⭐️ Pedro Dias consulting - https://visively.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 and Intro
00:50 Pedro's Google Journey
03:12 Matt Cutts Era Stories
03:31 Viral LinkedIn AI Title
05:21 Spam Signals and Intent
10:33 Webspam Work Then vs Now
15:17 Defining Quality Content
21:30 Non Commodity Content SEO
27:21 Entity Authority Consistency
32:56 Do Backlinks Still Matter
37:55 Earning Links with Great Assets
40:58 SEO Myths and Fake Natural Links
46:29 Safe AI Content Scaling
53:58 AI Visibility and GEO Theater
54:49 Many Bots Era
55:22 SEO Mindset Shift
57:08 LLMs Txt And Schema Myths
01:00:35 Be Retrievable And Fast
01:04:19 Semantic HTML Debate
01:07:30 Top Technical SEO Fixes
01:11:02 Internal Linking And Crawl Budget
01:15:01 Pruning Weak Pages
01:18:53 Diagnosing Traffic Drops
01:22:31 Search Intent And Topicality
01:27:14 SEO Polishes Value
01:29:13 Vanity Metrics To Ignore
01:31:23 Tomorrow 30 Days 1 Year
01:37:30 GEO Vs SEO Future
01:40:36 Google Memories And Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #technicalseo #webdevelopment

E1104: Your best-performing pages may already be ranking for dozens or hundreds of searches that they do not fully cover.
I show you a practical one-hour SEO update that uses Google Search Console and Claude to find those missed opportunities, add the right sections to your content, and help pages that already perform well rank for even more keywords.
You are not guessing which topics to add. You are using the actual searches Google already associates with your page.
I walk through the complete process:
- Find your most-clicked pages in Google Search Console
- Choose an existing page that is worth updating
- Export every search query the page currently ranks for
- Upload the article and query data to Claude
- Identify keyword clusters with meaningful impressions
- Find topics the article does not currently cover well
- Turn those gaps into relevant new H2 sections
- Decide exactly where each new section should be inserted
- Rewrite the AI output so it is accurate, concise, confident, and sounds like you
- Add two or three useful sections instead of unnecessarily expanding the entire page
- Use the updated page to internally link to other pages you want to rank
- Add context when an internal link would otherwise feel unrelated
- Update the introduction so it reflects the expanded article
- Update the published date after making a substantial revision
- Request indexing through Google Search Console
I also share the exact prompt you can use:
"I'm attaching my article and a CSV of Google Search Console queries it currently ranks for. Analyze the queries against the article's existing content, identify keyword clusters with meaningful impressions that aren't well-covered in the article, and suggest new H2 sections to add - so the article can rank for more of the queries it's already partially matching."
You will also learn how to use a ranking page to support other pages on your site.
Pages that already rank and receive clicks pass value through internal links. Instead of adding links randomly, you can find the most natural place to link to a page you want to improve.
The internal-link prompt covered in the episode is:
"This is the page I want to boost. Find the most natural place in the first article to add an internal link to it. Give me only where to add it, the sentence or H2 section to insert, and the anchor text. Keep it concise and in my voice."
When the two pages are not closely related, adding a short section can give the link the context it needs. That makes the link more useful to readers and strengthens the connection between the two topics.
This process helps you:
- Get more value from content that already ranks
- Find keyword opportunities using your own Search Console data
- Improve existing pages without rewriting them from scratch
- Build more relevant internal links
- Support existing or weaker pages
- Expand your site's coverage of related topics
- Spend your time on updates backed by real search demand
You probably already know that updating old content is important. This episode gives you a clear process you can complete in about an hour.
⭐️ Ep 675 - "How to Humanize ChatGPT Content" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_bmGoLFfRo 
⭐️ Ep 1100 - "The SEO Colony Hack That Ranks Money Pages Without Backlinks" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFGNSAjdz6Y 
💎 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 One Hour SEO Win
00:16 Find Top Pages In GSC
00:46 Export Ranking Queries
01:01 Claude Prompt For New H2s
02:04 Rewrite And Humanize AI
03:39 Add Sections Then Link Boost
04:29 Internal Link Placement Prompt
05:39 Refresh Intro And Reindex
06:08 Why This Works
07:47 Podcast Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #googlesearchconsole #digitalmarketing

E1103: Google has added a new Search Console property type that shows how content from Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube performs across Google Search and Discover.
The new "platform properties" feature lets creators and businesses see which search terms lead people to their social and video content, along with data about how people interact with those posts.
This is further evidence that Google's increased focus on social media content is not temporary.
I explain:
- What Google's new platform properties are
- Which social and video platforms are currently supported
- How to connect Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube to Search Console
- Why this update matters for SEO
- How social posts can rank for valuable keywords
- Why the first words of a LinkedIn post matter
- How LinkedIn uses those words in the page title and URL
- Why placing your target keyword near the beginning of a post can improve relevance
- How to reuse the same text post across LinkedIn, X, Threads, and Facebook
- Why detailed video descriptions are better than a few words and hashtags
- How transcripts can help Google and AI systems understand your videos
- Why websites are still important even as social content becomes more visible in search
- What happened when I used an indexer to get a LinkedIn post indexed within 30 minutes
- Why getting indexed does not necessarily mean the post will rank on page one
- The risks of using indexers across every social post
Most creators are not intentionally targeting keywords with their social content. Their descriptions are often short, vague, or filled with hashtags that give search engines very little useful context.
That creates an opening for businesses that understand how keyword targeting works.
You can continue building bottom-of-funnel pages on your website while also targeting related searches through social posts and short-form videos. The platforms receiving the most attention may change, but your website remains the foundation that you control.
Google says platform properties are rolling out gradually over the coming weeks. At launch, the feature supports Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube.
⭐️ See how content from social and video platforms performs on Google Search - https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/07/search-console-social-video-platforms 
⭐️ My Exact Social Media Posting Strategy - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/social-media-posting-strategy/ 
⭐️ GaryVee: Gemini Is the Only Guaranteed Winner in AI Search - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUnV-xaH32k 
💎 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 Google Embraces Social
01:02 Websites Not Dead
01:20 LinkedIn Keyword Hack
02:50 Cross Post Everywhere
03:44 Short Form Reality Check
04:12 X Video Opportunity
04:58 Transcripts For AI SEO
05:32 Website Plus Social Strategy
06:19 Enable Platform Properties
06:53 Keyword Edge On Social
07:39 Indexers Testing Risks
08:51 Wrap
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing