Google's September 2026 Spam Update Phase 2 Hits (And Reddit's AI Translations Are Winning Again)

E1187: Google changed its guidance on AI-generated content on October 1, and the new language makes one thing very clear: publishing unchecked AI content creates real SEO risk. Google now explicitly says publishers must manually fact-check and review AI-generated content for accuracy and trustworthiness before publishing. That review doesn't stop with the body copy. Google says it also applies to page titles, meta descriptions, structured data, and image alt text. I break down exactly what Google changed, what it means for SEOs using AI at scale, and how I use AI without handing an entire page over to an LLM. We cover: - Google's new October 1 guidance on AI-generated content - Why Google now explicitly calls for manual fact-checking - Why hallucinations give Google another reason to distrust scaled AI pages - Why scaled AI content becomes especially risky when nobody reviews it - Google's stance on AI content vs. AI spam - Why Google does not ban AI-generated content - How Google evaluates low-quality automated content - Why useful, original AI-assisted content still ranks - What Google says about AI disclosures and author bylines - Why I recommend using AI as a writing assistant instead of one-shotting entire SEO pages - How one-shot AI pages frequently miss search intent - How unchecked AI content often creates weak above-the-fold experiences - How bad user signals build when pages fail to satisfy searchers - How Google can lose faith in an entire website after enough weak pages - Why images and video matter when you use AI-generated text - How AI produces bloated pages that hurt conversions - How cutting copy, navigation, and distractions increases conversions - Why AI-detected content may also get excluded from AI training data The biggest takeaway: AI content itself is not the problem. Google explicitly says automation and AI generation are not automatically spam. The problem starts when publishers use AI to generate large amounts of content without adding value, reviewing the output, correcting inaccuracies, or making sure the page satisfies search intent. My approach remains the same: use AI as a writing assistant. Guide it closely. Edit aggressively. Fact-check everything. Add original thought, images, video, examples, and real experience. Do not give an LLM a keyword and blindly publish whatever comes back. I also explain why simply proofreading a fully AI-written page still falls short. Once the AI decides the structure, arguments, and interpretation of search intent, you are already anchored to its thinking. ⭐️ Google Search's guidance on using generative AI content on your website - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/using-gen-ai-content  ⭐️ Google's FAQ - https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/02/google-search-and-ai-content  ⭐️ How to Humanize AI Content - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/humanize-chatgpt-content/  ⭐️ How to Double Your Conversions by Doing Less (10 Before-and-After Examples) - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/conversion-rate-optimisation-strategy-simplify-landing-pages/  ⭐️ Ep 1083 - Google's New AI Spam Detector Could Wipe Out Entire SEO Networks - https://youtu.be/I78IQS99EwU  ⭐️ Ep 1153 - Google Can Detect Your AI Content. Here's What Happens Next. - https://youtu.be/G0qcfknUCcU  ⭐️ Ep 1166 - Google Can Lose Faith In Your Website (Here's How To Get It Back) - https://youtu.be/Q4cB34UticI  💎 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 Content Warning 00:24 Google AI Guidance Overview 01:14 Quality Raters And AI 02:03 October 1 Fact Check Update 02:51 Scaled AI Content Risks 03:29 Give Users Context 04:21 FAQ What Counts As Spam 05:44 Detection And EEAT Basics 06:50 Authorship And Disclosures 07:42 Practical AI SEO Workflow 09:38 Humanize With Media 10:26 Trim Fluff Boost Conversions 11:20 AI Detection Consequences 13:00 Episode Outro  The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #webdevelopment

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

E1181: I break down six SEO habits that marketers and site owners use to grow traffic without chasing a new tactic every week. These came from a popular SEO Growth subreddit thread where people shared the habits that made the biggest difference for them. I go through the best responses, explain why they work, and show you how to take each one further. In this episode: - Export Google Search Console data every month and study what Google tells you. Look at which queries generate impressions, where your pages rank, which pages get clicks, and where the gaps are. - Separate keywords into covered and uncovered opportunities. Covered keywords tell you which existing pages deserve updates. Uncovered keywords tell you what new pages to create. This also reduces unnecessary overlap between pages targeting similar searches. - Refresh old content instead of constantly publishing new pages. Update outdated information, tighten search intent above the fold, remove fluff, improve what comes next, and add relevant queries your page already ranks for. - Build backlinks every single week. Consistent link acquisition compounds. Journalist outreach, partnerships, link outreach, and other repeatable methods beat doing one huge link-building push every six months. - Use Google Search Console to find queries you rank for but never intentionally targeted. If a page sits on page two for a relevant search, add a section or paragraph that directly addresses that query. Google already sees the page as relevant. Give it a stronger reason to rank higher. - Study search results constantly. When you search Google, look at why certain pages rank above others. When you use ChatGPT or Claude, study which sources they cite and why. Over time, patterns become obvious. I also cover: - Why informational content keeps losing clicks even when impressions stay strong - How to spot pages that need an update - Why broken links and fading pages deserve regular attention - Why giving companies free SEO recommendations sometimes turns into paid work - How partnerships create recurring backlink opportunities - Why learning directly from SERPs beats blindly trusting tool scores ⭐️ The Reddit Thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1wh0yvq/whats_one_seo_habit_that_has_made_the_biggest/  ⭐️ Ep 787 - The #1 SEO Hack: Why Content Refreshes Beat New Content - https://youtu.be/UKvGmqzIxg4  ⭐️ Ep 1104 - The 1-Hour SEO Update That Makes Your Best Pages Rank for More Keywords - https://youtu.be/GmsAuotHGso  ⭐️ Ep 1160 - How To Get Free Backlinks in 2026 (Methods That Actually Work) - https://youtu.be/U-5VL9o9RGQ  ⭐️ Ep 1173 - The Internal Linking Trick That Uses Topical Authority You Already Have - https://youtu.be/2dPc80Z_DZk  ⭐️ AI SEO/GEO/AEO: How to Get Shown in LLMs in 2026 - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/ai-seo-geo-aeo-get-shown-llms-2026/  💎 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 Biggest SEO Habit 00:16 Monthly GSC Review 01:14 Covered vs Uncovered Keywords 01:45 Content Refresh Checklist 03:22 Weekly Backlink Outreach 04:40 Query Tweaks to Rank 05:27 Learn From Other Sites 07:37 Consistency and Internal Links 08:21 Partnership Link Exchanges 09:08 Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/   #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #performancemarketing

E1180: Google's September 2026 spam update is rolling out, and this one looks very different from the last few. The update started September 24 and is registering a 9.4/10 on Semrush's volatility tracker. Google Search Advocate John Mueller also confirmed that this spam update is expected to take longer than recent spam updates, with volatility potentially continuing for roughly two weeks. At the same time, a Google research paper about a system called SAFE started circulating across the SEO industry. SAFE stands for Scaled Abuse Forensic Examiner. Google describes it as an AI-driven anti-abuse system built to identify synthetic threats that traditional classifiers and manual review struggle to catch. The timing raises an obvious question: is SAFE connected to the September spam update? Google has not confirmed that. But the paper shows how far Google's anti-spam systems have moved beyond simply asking whether a page "looks AI-generated." I break down: - What Google's September 2026 spam update is - How this rollout is taking longer than recent spam updates - What I'm seeing across two very different websites - Why one bottom-of-funnel SaaS site dropped and quickly recovered - Why a top-of-funnel content site is still experiencing volatility - How Google's SAFE analyzes content, behavior, infrastructure, timing, and relationships between content producers - Why multimodal semantic embeddings matter - How Google is using specialized AI agents to investigate synthetic abuse - Why SAFE appears designed to catch new forms of spam that traditional classifiers miss - How this relates to Google's other 2026 AI spam detection research - Why some SEOs think the September update is catching spam missed by the August update - What SEOs are reporting across X and Reddit - Why thin programmatic SEO pages may be especially exposed - What to do if your Google Search Console data suddenly becomes volatile - Why I would wait for the rollout to finish before making drastic changes - The two things I would still check immediately on your most important pages - How bottom-of-funnel SEO tends to remain more stable through major updates The biggest point: do not panic and start rebuilding your site because rankings move during the rollout. Wait until the rollout ends. Always check whether your important pages are tightly relevant to the query. Make sure the keyword appears in the title, URL, H1, and opening sentence. Then make sure the page answers search intent immediately. Google's spam systems are getting more sophisticated. SAFE shows that Google is looking at far more than individual pages. It can analyze coordinated behavior, infrastructure, semantic patterns, content relationships, and signals across larger abuse networks. The September spam update is still rolling out, so we do not have the full picture yet. I'll continue covering what changes as more data comes in. ⭐️ SE Roundtable: Google September 2026 Spam Update - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-september-2026-spam-update-42163.html  ⭐️ SEMrush Volatility Tracker - https://www.semrush.com/sensor/  ⭐️ Search Engine Journal - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-has-deployed-a-new-ai-spam-detector-called-safe/590918/  ⭐️ Google's SAFE Research Paper (PDF) - https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-research2023-media/pubtools/1039292.pdf  ⭐️ Barry Schwartz on 𝕏 (update rollout discussion) - https://x.com/rustybrick/status/2103161355561766957  ⭐️ 2026 September spam update on Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1wp6ml7/google_search_central_on_x_today_we_released_the/  ⭐️ Ep 1083 - Google's New AI Spam Detector Could Wipe Out Entire SEO Networks - https://youtu.be/I78IQS99EwU  ⭐️ Ep 1153 - Google Can Detect Your AI Content. Here's What Happens Next. - https://youtu.be/G0qcfknUCcU  💎 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 September Spam Update Hits Hard 00:34 What Spam Updates Mean 01:24 How This Rollout Is Longer 02:16 Real Site Volatility Examples 03:18 SAFE Paper Goes Viral 05:00 How SAFE Detects Abuse 07:33 SAFE Technical Foundations 10:01 SEO Community Reactions 11:57 What To Do If Hit 12:31 Bottom of Funnel SEO Stability 13:56 Final Sign-Off The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/   #searchengineoptimization #seo #googlespamupdate #searchmarketing

E1179: PBNs still work in 2026, and Kalin Karakehayov has the numbers to back up why he thinks they remain one of the most underrated strategies in SEO. I'm joined by Kalin Karakehayov, Charles Floate, and David Quaid for a deep discussion on black hat SEO, private blog networks, aged domains, backlinks, AI search, parasite SEO, and where search is heading next. Kalin owns more than 200,000 domains and operates a PBN of roughly 30,000 websites. He explains why PBNs have become easier to operate than they were a decade ago, why his network doesn't need organic traffic to pass value, and how he evaluates domains based on strength, relevance, history, and geography. Charles and David push the discussion further into how agencies could build private networks of their own, why backlinks remain fundamental to ranking, and why so many SEOs have moved away from link building even though links still drive results. Then the conversation moves into AI search. Kalin explains his research into Common Crawl and harmonic centrality, a link metric based on proximity across the web rather than the traditional PageRank model. He lays out a theory for using domains with high harmonic centrality to increase crawling and potentially increase the chances of websites entering AI training data. Charles explains how Common Crawl data can also be reverse engineered to find valuable domains and connections between websites, and the group discusses what this means for GEO, AI citations, brand associations, and the future value of aged domains. We also get into: - Why Kalin believes PBNs are underrated in 2026 - How a 30,000-site PBN works without ranking the individual sites - PBNs vs. public link farms - Why private networks are harder for Google to identify - Why backlinks without traffic still pass value - How Kalin evaluates aged and expired domains - Exact-match domains and partial-match domains - Why valuable domains keep getting more expensive - PageRank vs. harmonic centrality - Common Crawl and AI training data - How domains could influence AI visibility - Charles' approach to reverse engineering Common Crawl - The danger of negative SEO in AI search - Why the internet increasingly becomes a fight for digital territory - The ultra-high-quality vs. ultra-low-quality content strategy - Why Kalin thinks websites stuck in the middle face the biggest problem - How Charles chooses between Google, YouTube, AI search, and other channels - Using parasite SEO to test markets before investing heavily - How Charles would approach a new website with a limited budget - Building the entire core of a site before launch - When to start building links - Why SEO risk isn't as simple as "white hat" vs. "black hat" - Why Charles focuses on ROI instead of labels This is a wide-ranging conversation about what actually works in SEO, how black hat SEOs think about risk and assets, and how those strategies are evolving as search expands beyond Google into AI. ⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on 𝕏 - https://x.com/Karakehayov  ⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karakehayov  ⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kalin.karakehayov/  ⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/karakehayov  ⭐️ SEO.Domains (domains and backlinks) - https://seo.domains  ⭐️ GigaLinks (AI SEO and citations) - https://gigalinks.com  ⭐️ SEO.BO (SEO agency) - https://seo.bo  ⭐️ I Grow Younger - https://i.gy  ⭐️ I Grow Younger on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@growyounger  ⭐️ Charles Floate's community - https://seo.stream  ⭐️ Charles Floate on 𝕏 - https://x.com/Charles_SEO  ⭐️ Charles Floate on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesfloate/  ⭐️ Charles Floate on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@CharlesFloate  ⭐️ Charles Floate on Facebook - https://facebook.com/thecharlesfloate   ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid  ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/  ⭐️ David "The King" Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid  ⭐️ David "The King" 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 Meet The Panel 00:39 Are PBNs Underrated 02:04 PBN Risks And Footprints 04:25 Shared PBNs And EMDs 07:24 Zero Traffic PBN Math 10:40 Buying And Assessing Domains 12:38 Backlinks Culture Wars 16:34 AI Search Makes Domains Pricier 19:28 Harmonic Centrality For LLMs 22:35 Testing Common Crawl Strategies 27:44 Token Engineering And Negative SEO 31:20 Economics Of Link Inflation 34:28 Stop Debating Start Building 41:03 Territory Mindset And AI Agents 44:21 Search Opportunity And Click Economics 46:38 Cheap Sites With AI 47:29 Budget Question Reframed 47:48 Ultra High vs Low 50:43 Channel First Planning 54:10 MVP Zero To 100 56:26 Build To Exit 58:26 Career Moves And Networking 01:00:59 Comfort Zone Duality 01:04:51 Safe But Dangerous 01:10:31 Hedging With Parasites 01:12:09 Sell Links As Hedge 01:18:44 Scale Like A Commodity 01:21:36 Minimum Viable SEO 01:23:41 Where To Find Them 01:25:47 Podcast Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/   #blackhatseo #searchengineoptimization #privateblognetwork #seo

E1177: Ross Hudgens of Siege Media breaks down the page type driving the most AI search traffic across his clients: versus pages. Ross says Siege Media's correlation analysis found that clients with the most AI traffic also had the most comparison and versus content. We get into why these pages perform so well across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google, and traditional search, how to structure them, and why most companies still execute them poorly. We also go deep on branded subreddits, Reddit SEO, AI search measurement, link building, digital PR, keyword research, content refreshes, publisher traffic declines, and how SEO strategy is changing as more searches end without a click. In this episode: - Why versus pages are driving so much AI search traffic - Why comparison pages belong on landing pages instead of blogs - Where to put comparison tables - How to write versus pages without turning them into templated SEO garbage - How to choose which competitors deserve comparison pages - Why three-way comparisons sometimes work - How versus pages support sales teams beyond SEO - Why companies struggle to publish honest competitor comparisons - Using YouTube influencers when a brand refuses to publish comparison content itself - Why branded subreddits matter for SEO, reputation management, and LLM visibility - When a company has enough branded search demand to justify its own subreddit - How little traction a branded subreddit needs before it starts ranking - Why Reddit still matters even as its AI citation share changes - Repurposing existing website content onto Reddit - Using branded communities to rank for review and reputation queries - Why Siege Media does less manual link building than it did years ago - Where link-building budget is moving instead - Why fewer niche bloggers exist today - The growing role of LinkedIn, YouTube, influencers, and UGC in search - Why backlinks still matter even as the open web shrinks - How Siege Media approaches digital PR differently today - Using proprietary data across multiple existing ranking pages - Why recurring annual and quarterly data studies compound over time - How publishers need to rethink monetization as AI takes top-of-funnel clicks - Why publishers still hold valuable influence inside LLM answers - The problem with treating Perplexity like it has the same importance as ChatGPT - How Ross measures AI search and GEO performance - Why "How did you hear about us?" remains one of the strongest attribution questions - The AI search tracking tools Siege Media uses - How third-party citations influence LLM visibility - Why generic "best overall" positioning often fails - How LLMs categorize brands into specific use cases - Siege Media's KOB keyword research framework - How Ross now adds LLM visibility into keyword prioritization - How to decide whether a keyword deserves a new page - Why top-of-funnel informational SEO keeps getting harder - The types of informational content that still defend their clicks from AI Ross has spent more than 14 years building Siege Media and working across SEO, content marketing, link building, digital PR, and now AI search. This conversation gets into what Siege Media is doing more of in 2026, what it has reduced, and where Ross thinks search is moving next. ⭐️ Ross Hudgens on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosshudgens/  ⭐️ Ross Hudgens on 𝕏 - https://x.com/RossHudgens  ⭐️ Ross Hudgens' book, Generative Engine Optimization: The Definitive Guide to AI SEO - https://www.amazon.com/Generative-Engine-Optimizations-Ross-Hudgens/dp/1394439806  ⭐️ Siege Media Book page - https://www.siegemedia.com/geo-book  💎 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 Ross Hudgens 00:30 Siege Media Origin Story 00:56 Versus Pages Win AI 07:07 Comparison Page Blueprint 09:54 Avoid Templated Comparisons 13:33 Branded Subreddit SEO 15:48 Republishing Content on Reddit 25:05 Less Manual Link Building 26:48 LinkedIn and Social Signals 33:58 Digital PR Data Strategy 40:27 Publisher Survival in AI Era 44:33 Measure GEO and AI Traffic 46:54 AI Long Tail Traffic 48:03 Tools For Measuring 48:27 Citation Share Strategy 50:16 New Client Audit 51:02 Common SEO Mistakes 53:23 Versus Pages Limits 54:05 KOB Keyword Framework 55:46 LLM Visibility Signals 57:52 New Page Or Update 01:00:54 Rank Position Eight To One 01:02:10 AI Content UX Fails 01:05:24 When To Refresh Content 01:09:00 Reddit And Offsite SEO 01:14:49 Site Structure Mapping 01:17:01 CRO Is GEO 01:18:36 Prompt Tracking Mistakes 01:20:05 Influencing LLM Answers 01:21:35 AI Slop Sites Fade 01:24:38 Hallucination Story 01:29:17 Using AI As Partner 01:30:23 Schema And LLMs Txt 01:33:32 Quick Wins And Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/   #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo