The Edward Show

E1186: Google is now showing AI Overviews for simple brand-name searches, and those summaries sometimes tell customers why they should avoid the company they just searched for.
Ann Smarty joins to break down what this means for SEO, branded search, online reputation management, Reddit, reviews, and the way businesses control what people see before they ever reach their website.
We look at real examples including GoDaddy, JustAnswer, and Bluehost. Someone searches a company name, and Google immediately surfaces complaints, controversies, cancellation information, outdated pricing, old Reddit threads, and other third-party information.
That creates a completely different customer journey.
Someone already knows your brand. They type your name into Google or even their browser address bar. Google autocomplete sends them toward searches like "[brand] legit" or "[brand] reviews." Then an AI Overview summarizes what Google finds before that person ever visits your site.
In this episode, Ann and I cover:
- Why AI Overviews appearing for brand-name searches matter so much
- How old Reddit threads and outdated reviews influence what Google says about your company
- Why unhappy customers naturally create more public content than happy customers
- Finding the branded searches that influence buying decisions
- Why you should monitor the top 10 to 20 results for important branded queries
- How to identify the complaints and pain points Google keeps surfacing
- Why strong customer support forms the foundation of reputation management
- How your website, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, and other properties work together in branded search
- Why Ann recommends creating dedicated YouTube playlists around customer reviews
- How video testimonials give you additional branded search assets
- Why businesses should answer questions about pricing, complaints, controversies, and policies themselves instead of forcing customers to search elsewhere
- Why hiding important information often creates more branded searches around words like "scam," "legit," "reviews," and "price"
- How to use a branded subreddit without making the mistake of deleting every negative comment
- Why responding calmly to criticism often works better than trying to erase it
- What happens when brands try to bury negative search results too aggressively
- How companies use parasite properties and unofficial-looking accounts for reputation management
- Why those tactics create serious risks when employees, contractors, or community members expose what the company is doing
- How to prepare for a reputation crisis before one happens
Ann also tells the story of the Google penalty that hit her guest blogging platform after it became one of the biggest platforms in the industry.
Google publicly targeted the platform, users received manual penalties, and Ann faced the news while speaking at an industry conference. 
Instead of disappearing, she addressed it publicly, supported her users, kept working, and continued building her career.
The biggest takeaway: reputation management starts long before you have a reputation problem.
If you plan to grow a brand, start controlling your branded search results now. Know what ranks for your name. Build properties you control. Answer uncomfortable questions directly. Take care of customers. Give happy customers reasons to share their experiences.
Now Google does not just rank what people say about your brand. It summarizes it for your customers.
⭐️ Ann Smarty's SEO for AI Subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO_for_AI/ 
⭐️ Ann Smarty on 𝕏 - https://x.com/seosmarty 
⭐️ Ann Smarty on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/annsmarty/
⭐️ Ann Smarty's site - https://www.annsmarty.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 AI Overviews Hit Brands
01:51 Branded Search Horror Stories
02:57 Zero Click Reputation Risk
06:15 Why Negativity Dominates
10:00 Audit Branded SERPs
14:25 Own The Pain Points
18:40 Customer Support Fixes ORM
19:37 Burying Lawsuit Searches
22:59 ChatGPT Digs Everything
23:51 Anne's Google Penalty Story
28:15 Video Reviews Everywhere
32:31 Stop Hiding Pricing
38:42 Can You Bury Minor Issues
40:27 Owning The Spotlight
41:30 Quiet Statement Strategy
42:36 Reddit Fire Control
44:28 Crisis Playbook Basics
46:21 Distraction PR Tactics
47:50 Owning Mistakes Publicly
50:49 Preplanned Crisis Responses
53:19 Parasite SEO Ethics Debate
57:29 Build Reputation Foundation
01:01:41 Branded Subreddit Moderation
01:06:42 Time Smooths Crises
01:11:35 Brand Growth Makes Targets
01:14:40 Wrap Up And Where To Find
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#generativeengineoptimization #onlinereputationmanagement #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1185: Google's September 2026 spam update just entered what looks like phase two.
Google launched the update on September 24. The first major wave hit around September 25-27. Things cooled down, then volatility exploded again on September 30.
This rollout looks very different from Google's recent spam updates. Instead of finishing in roughly two days, Google says this one will run for around two weeks, which means we're seeing separate waves of sites drop, recover, and move throughout the rollout.
I break down what changed during the September 30 wave, what types of sites are getting hit, why some previously crushed sites are suddenly recovering, and one of the strangest winners so far: Reddit's AI-translated pages.
Reddit's AI translations surged across countries including Italy, Germany, Brazil, and France. These pages previously dropped hard during Google's May 2026 core update and June 2026 spam update, but they're climbing again.
Reddit itself has now reached an all-time high in estimated organic search traffic.
I also cover:
- Why September 30 looks like the second major phase of the spam update
- Why Google's unusually long two-week rollout matters
- Sites recovering after previous spam updates
- One recovery that jumped from nearly zero to roughly 8,000 Google clicks per day
- Reddit AI translations returning to Google Search
- Why Reddit's AI-translated UGC performs differently from mass-translated blog content
- The types of pages taking the hardest hits
- Highly templated service pages
- Programmatic SEO pages with little unique value
- Thoughtless AI-generated content
- Doorway pages that swap locations while keeping almost everything else identical
- A site with 143 templated county service pages getting hit
- Why Google keeps targeting large-scale page generation that fails to satisfy specific search intent
- Why normal white-hat sites are still seeing volatility during the rollout
- Amazon Spain reportedly losing significant estimated organic traffic during the update
- Why Ahrefs, Semrush, and other rank trackers are showing unreliable SERP data right now
- Google's latest anti-scraping changes and the problems they're creating for SEO tools
- Why Google Search Console matters more than third-party rank tracking during this period
- What I'm doing while the update continues rolling out
The biggest pattern remains clear: Google keeps going after scaled pages that exist mainly because someone found a template and multiplied it across hundreds or thousands of keywords.
Changing a city, county, product, or keyword while leaving almost everything else the same does not create a page specifically for that searcher.
But this update isn't only producing losses.
Sites hit by previous spam updates are also seeing major recoveries. Google appears to be reevaluating sites as its spam systems update, meaning work done after an earlier hit is showing up during later algorithm updates.
My advice during the rollout remains simple: don't panic and make massive changes while Google is still moving everything around.
Instead, look closely at the pages that actually make you money.
Ask whether those pages:
- Satisfy search intent immediately
- Give the searcher what they came for above the fold
- Remove unnecessary distractions
- Make the main action obvious
- Contain information created specifically for that query rather than copied from a template
Google's September spam update still has time left to run. September 30 looks like the second major wave, and we'll see whether another phase hits before the rollout finishes.
⭐️ SE Roundtable: Phase Two of the Google September 2026 Spam Update Hits - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-september-2026-spam-update-two-42209.html 
⭐️ Glenn Gabe on 𝕏 - https://x.com/glenngabe/status/2105638422102561193 
⭐️ Lily Ray on 𝕏 - https://x.com/lilyraynyc/status/2105298995543425445 
⭐️ Charles Floate on 𝕏 - https://x.com/Charles_SEO/status/2104504430683197518 
⭐️ How to Double Your Conversions by Doing Less (10 Before-and-After Examples) - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/conversion-rate-optimisation-strategy-simplify-landing-pages/ 
💎 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 Spam Update Phase Two
00:19 Early Impact Timeline
01:10 What We Know So Far
01:47 Reddit Translations Return
03:06 Recovery Surges Explained
05:04 Why Reddit Still Wins
06:56 What Content Got Hit
08:38 Rank Trackers Breaking
11:15 Community Reactions
12:42 What To Do Now
13:34 Conversion Cleanup Tips
16:03 Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  
#searchengineoptimization #seo #googlespamupdate #performancemarketing

E1184: Jacky Chou and David Quaid sit down for a wide-ranging conversation about where SEO still makes money in 2026, what Jacky would build today, and why he thinks most indie hackers leave huge opportunities on the table.
Jacky's opening argument is simple: find SaaS products already making money, build a competing product, then use SEO and paid distribution to beat founders who know how to code but do not know how to market.
From there, the conversation goes deep into SaaS, affiliate SEO, parasite SEO, Reddit, ChatGPT, listicles, backlinks, partial-match domains, offsite SEO, and what Jacky would do if he had to start from zero again.
In this episode:
- Why Jacky says SaaS is the biggest SEO opportunity right now
- How he finds indie hacker apps with proven revenue, rebuilds the idea, and attacks the search demand around it
- Why marketers now have an advantage when AI makes software much easier to build
- How Jacky replaced a $600/month rank tracker with his own tool and sold it as a lifetime deal
- Why he launches constantly instead of betting everything on one business
- How some of his older income streams fell roughly 90%, and why that changed how he thinks about diversification
- Why he believes traditional SEO display-ad sites have largely disappeared while affiliate SEO still works
- Why "best X" and other buyer-intent searches still produce revenue even with AI Overviews
- Why Jacky barely checks Google Search Console unless revenue drops
- How he validates new products with paid ads instead of waiting for SEO
- Why he thinks many AI SEO tools fail because their creators do not actually understand SEO
- Why he says Reddit spam became much harder, and why buying established subreddits entered the playbook
- How Jacky thinks Google's preference for high-authority sites creates more opportunities for parasite SEO
- Why he believes listicles remain one of the strongest ways to influence what ChatGPT cites and recommends
- Why he thinks ChatGPT and Google are becoming less dependent on the same underlying results
- Why Jacky prefers partial-match domains and puts more energy into offsite SEO than onsite SEO
- How David thinks about expired domains, backlinks, clicks, and authority
- Why both of them think SEOs overcomplicate Google
- What Jacky would do if he had to start over today
- How he took a new iOS app from $0 to about $1,000/month in its first month through search
- Why Jacky says the fastest way to learn SEO is to stop reading, start testing, and keep launching
Jacky and David also get into the economics behind SEO software, Meta retargeting, programmatic SEO, site reputation abuse, Forbes, buyer's guides, and why execution beats waiting for the perfect idea.
If you work in SEO, build software, run affiliate sites, or want to use search to launch your own products, this episode gives you a direct look at how Jacky Chou and David Quaid approach SEO in 2026.
⭐️ Jacky Chou on 𝕏 - https://x.com/indexsy 
⭐️ Jack Chou's website - https://jackychou.com/ 
⭐️ Jacky Chou on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@indexsy 
⭐️ 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 Jackie and David Join
01:17 Biggest SEO Opportunity SaaS
05:35 Affiliate and Ads Reality
08:27 From Consulting to SaaS
13:08 AI Tools and Indie Hackers
17:28 Sprint Before AI Loop
24:15 Launch Fast and Iterate
26:18 Replacing Tools and Paid Ads
32:05 Google Spam and Parasites
34:43 Reddit Spam and Sub Markets
39:46 Buying Subreddits Pricing
42:39 Build vs Buy Communities
43:20 Buyer Guides vs Listicles
44:38 LLMs Splitting from Google
45:56 Spamming ChatGPT Citations
47:29 Forbes and Reputation Abuse
49:59 Entrepreneur Paths for Engineers
52:17 SEO Learn by Doing
54:22 Modern SEO Frameworks
56:12 Parasite SEO and Offsite Focus
01:00:22 Indexers and User Signals
01:04:39 Parasite Deals and Economics
01:09:07 Building Multiple Brands
01:13:04 Viral Growth and Fraud
01:19:04 Nord Tactic and Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  
#searchengineoptimization #seo #indiehackers #buildinpublic

E1183: ChatGPT is building more of its own search index, and that changes where SEO goes next.
David G. Quaid joins me to break down what OpenAI appears to be doing, how its cached web content starts to function like an index, and what SEOs need to understand if ChatGPT relies less on Google and Bing over time.
OpenAI has already discussed a long-term goal of serving most search traffic from its own first-party index. David explains why the change may already be happening: repeatedly fetching the same pages in real time costs too much, takes too long, and creates unnecessary dependence on traditional search engines.
We get into:
- Why ChatGPT's cache increasingly resembles its own search index
- OpenAI's stated goal of serving more searches from first-party indexed content
- Why the same small group of pages can receive tens of thousands of AI crawl requests
- How Common Crawl fits into ChatGPT's search infrastructure
- Why ranking #1 in Google does not automatically mean more visibility in ChatGPT
- How LLMs use query fan-out to retrieve multiple documents
- Why consensus across multiple sources matters more than being position #1
- How OpenAI could use Google for occasional quality checks instead of every search
- Why OpenAI does not need to recreate Google's exact ranking order
- Why Google's decades of spam-fighting experience still give it an advantage
- How quickly OpenAI could copy major search-engine concepts once SEOs expose weaknesses
- Why exact-match domains and separate satellite sites become interesting in AI search
- How fabricated awards, press releases, and repeated claims across multiple websites influence AI answers
- What the King of AEO experiments reveal about how easily AI systems accept manufactured consensus
- Why targeting less competitive query fan-outs creates more opportunities
- Why David still says doing strong Google SEO gives you the best foundation for AI visibility
We also discuss another major change happening in SEO: traditional rank tracking is getting less reliable.
Google's personalization and recent search changes increasingly create situations where rank trackers report positions that do not match what users actually see. David and I discuss why Google Search Console may become the real source of truth and why more SEOs may eventually build their own tracking systems around the Search Console API.
Other topics include:
- Whether traditional SERP trackers face an existential problem
- Why impressions can fall while clicks stay flat
- Google's increasing personalization of search results
- Why newer SEOs suffer most when ranking data becomes less reliable
- Why schema does not create authority simply because you declare an entity
- Why Google's Knowledge Graph does not require schema to understand a person or brand
- Why ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity produce very different answers despite working from overlapping web information
- Why Google Images also prefers source diversity instead of showing one domain repeatedly
The biggest takeaway: even if ChatGPT builds its own index, the fundamentals do not suddenly disappear. It still needs to discover pages, decide which sources belong in its retrieval set, compare competing claims, and synthesize an answer. Optimize for Google and you land the most simultaneous high-value wins.
⭐️ 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 LLMs Building Indexes
00:51 Crawl Inefficiency Signals
02:37 Caching Becomes Index
03:20 King Of AEO Experiments
05:24 Common Crawl Shift
07:42 OpenAI Index Evidence
10:00 Schema And Knowledge Graph
13:23 Authority Without Browser Data
18:50 SEO Spam And Digg Moment
21:35 Preparing For LLM Indexing
26:20 Rank Trackers Breaking
32:01 Flying Blind On ROI
35:01 Why This Episode
35:52 Guest Debate Fallout
36:15 LLMs Building Indexes
37:39 Why Reddit YouTube Drop
42:17 Caching Over Live Fetch
44:25 Consensus Not Ranking
46:11 Early AI Spam Loopholes
48:05 Google vs Gemini Output
48:56 Fake Awards Gray Hat
51:50 Calling Out GEO Grifters
55:23 SEO Agency Horror Story
59:19 Variance Across Sources
01:00:54 Wrap Up Next Episode
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  
#generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1182: AEO companies keep presenting old SEO tactics as if AI search invented them.
Harpreet Singh joins me to break down what is actually different about AEO/GEO, what is simply traditional SEO with new terminology, and where companies are wasting time because they do not understand the history of search.
We start with the tactics now getting promoted on AI search conference stages: keywords in URLs, FAQs, meta descriptions, paragraphs, press releases, solution pages, listicles, and other concepts SEOs have used for years. Harpreet explains why removing the historical context around these tactics leads companies to overuse them and damage their search strategy.
Then we get into what is genuinely changing.
Harpreet walks through how he analyzes query fan-out, including ChatGPT searches that use site: operators to pull information from Gartner, G2, Capterra, and other third-party sources. For some brands, optimizing those profiles matters more than publishing another page on their own site.
We also talk about how difficult competitive AI visibility becomes when an LLM already associates established brands with a category. If a company spent 10 years being known as a mid-market product and suddenly wants to become an enterprise brand, changing a few pages will not rewrite that positioning. The company needs consistent signals across its own site, third-party profiles, reviews, media, creators, press, and search results.
In this episode:
- Why Harpreet says AEO companies are selling 2016 SEO
- Old SEO tactics getting repackaged as new AI search tactics
- Why SEO remains the foundation of AI visibility
- What query fan-out actually changes about keyword research
- Why Gartner, G2, Capterra, Reddit, YouTube, and other third-party sources matter
- How to optimize third-party profiles for the positioning you want LLMs to understand
- Why industry pages matter more as AI results become personalized
- How Harpreet tracks prompts like keywords instead of tracking endless prompt variations
- Why he ignores top-of-funnel AI citations that do not connect to revenue
- How to attack hyper-competitive terms such as "best email marketing software"
- Why solution pages and listicles still matter
- How reviews, press releases, influencers, and outside websites create consensus around a brand
- Why moving a brand from mid-market to enterprise creates an AI visibility problem
- How New Balance can outrank Nike and Adidas with basic category-page SEO
- Why enterprise SEO is often much worse than people assume
- Why creator-led AEO still has an attribution problem
- The simple "How did you hear about us?" field Harpreet uses to track AI-driven customers
- Why cheap press releases still influence AI answers
- Why AI search optimization remains a game of Whac-A-Mole
- Why search optimization does not disappear even if AI companies build their own indexes
The biggest point: AI search changes the surfaces and the retrieval process, but it does not erase the fundamentals. Relevance, authority, positioning, third-party validation, keyword targeting, internal linking, and strong pages still determine what gets found and trusted.
Harpreet Singh joins me for a 90-minute breakdown of what serious AI search optimization looks like once you strip away the new labels.
⭐️ 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 AEO and GEO Repackaging
01:27 Conference Speaker Concerns
04:14 Misleading Studies and Statistics
07:02 Debating AEO Tactics
08:47 Business Expansion Beyond AEO
10:57 Current AEO Sprint Work
13:24 Press Releases and Parasite SEO
15:41 Versus Pages Strategy
17:06 Industry Pages and Personalization
19:28 Query Fan Out Analysis
23:34 Profile Optimization Tactics
25:37 Award Winning Strategies
26:37 Brand Reviews Domain Tactic
28:13 Small Business Advantages
29:38 Tools and Tech Stack
30:34 Prompt Tracking Strategy
32:23 Hyper Competitive Keywords Approach
39:40 Brand Repositioning Challenges
43:26 AI Has Picked Winners
46:00 New Balance SEO Example
48:53 Fixing Page Copy
49:29 Internal Links Win
50:35 Enterprise SEO Fails
54:28 Why Copy Moves Rankings
56:29 Small Brands Need More
58:54 What AEO Talks Miss
01:00:34 Creator Led AEO ROI
01:07:27 Attribution Workarounds
01:09:10 Reputation and Affiliates
01:13:48 Small Business AEO Playbook
01:16:40 Press Releases Game AI
01:28:09 Why SEO Never Dies
01:29:41 Wrap Up and Where to Find
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo