The Edward Show

Daily SEO advice, hacks, and interviews with some of the top voices in search engine optimization, as well as sit-downs with many undiscovered talents.

The Edward Show is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 1,000 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts The Edward Show, a business show with 1,000 episodes published.

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  Episode #1141

  Can You Launch 100,000 Pages and Survive Google?

  Aug 18, 20261h 5mS1

  E1141: Can you launch a brand-new website with 100,000 pages and survive Google? That's the question at the center of today's episode with David G. Quaid. A listener sent me a problem he and his friends keep running into: they launch programmatic SEO sites with 10,000 - 100,000 URLs, organic traffic shoots up, and then the sites collapse back to zero. So David and I dug into whether large-scale programmatic SEO is still possible in 2026, where Google may draw the line between a legitimate database and scaled content abuse, and what separates sites that survive from sites that get wiped out. We cover: - Whether launching 10,000 or 100,000 URLs at once is automatically dangerous - Why David might launch a new marketplace or database slowly - The difference between legitimate programmatic SEO and scaled content built primarily to capture search traffic - Why empty location, category, job, or marketplace pages can become doorway-page problems - Why proprietary data can completely change the equation - Whether a site with genuinely useful data could launch at massive scale from day one - Why backlinks, press coverage, branded searches, and other signs of a real business may matter - Why user satisfaction could be one of the biggest differences between programmatic sites that survive and sites that collapse - Click-through rate, pogo-sticking, return searches, and other user signals we think Google may be evaluating - Why publishing 100 pages, checking performance, and then scaling may be safer than immediately publishing 100,000 - How to use Google Search Console to identify pages and queries that may be producing poor user signals - Why misleading page titles can create problems even when they initially generate more traffic - David's prediction for what Google's August spam update could target - Why some publishers may be blaming AI Overviews for traffic losses that are actually ranking losses - How to separate traffic lost to AI Overviews from traffic lost because Google moved your pages down - Why HubSpot's organic decline may have more to do with rankings and changing user behavior than AI simply taking its clicks - Whether Google Search has actually gotten better or worse over the last few years - How far a site can expand into adjacent topics before weakening its existing topical relevance The main question throughout the episode is simple: If you have 100,000 pages that genuinely deserve to exist, can you make all of them available immediately without Google assuming you built the site to manipulate search? David thinks there are conditions where it can work. The harder question is what signals Google needs to see before it trusts you enough to let it work. ⭐️ David Quaid on - 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 Programmatic SEO Today 00:17 Listener Database Launch Dilemma 01:12 Spam Updates and Scale Risks 03:18 Slow Rollout Strategy 04:25 Empty Pages and Manipulation 07:51 What Scaled Abuse Means 08:34 Proprietary Data Launch Debate 09:39 Grokipedia as Edge Case 12:31 Authority and Brand Signals 14:46 pSEO Example Book Calculator 20:34 Doorway Pages and Permutations 28:09 Phased Scaling and Testing 31:27 When Big Brands Can Launch Huge 32:46 pSEO Shortcut Mentality 33:17 When Programmatic SEO Fails 33:40 Localization and Scalable Pages 34:39 Finding Real Value Add 35:35 Brand Search Entity Mixups 39:28 Crawlers and Cloudflare Blocks 40:20 August Spam Update Predictions 42:15 Recovering From Traffic Drops 45:01 Free vs Freemium Titles 46:04 GSC Iteration Playbook 48:56 Are Google Results Better 50:23 HubSpot and User Signals 55:27 Expanding Into Adjacent Niches 01:00:49 Can 100k URLs Work 01:02:27 Wrap Up and Next Episode The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #programmaticseo #seopodcast

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  Episode #1140

  Claude Is Watermarking Everything It Writes. Google Doesn't Have the Key

  Aug 18, 202615 minS1

  E1140: Claude is now watermarking everything it writes, and the SEO community is worried about what this means for AI content and Google rankings. But there's an important detail: Google likely doesn't have the key needed to verify Claude's watermark. I break down what Anthropic's new watermarking system does, why it's being implemented, what it can and can't prove, and whether any of this should change how SEOs use AI-generated content. Anthropic is adding machine-readable marks to Claude's output as part of its compliance with the EU AI Act. The watermark can remain in text that has been copied and pasted, and Claude-generated files can include provenance metadata. The system is being rolled out across Claude, including its API and third-party platforms. But a watermark doesn't necessarily mean Claude wrote something from scratch. If you give Claude your own writing and ask it to fix grammar, translate it, summarize it, or otherwise process it, the resulting text may still contain the mark. And if no watermark is detected, that doesn't prove Claude wasn't involved. In this episode: - Why Anthropic is watermarking Claude's output - How AI text watermarking works - Why the EU AI Act matters here - Why switching from Claude to another major AI model won't solve anything - What Claude's watermark can and cannot tell you - Why short passages and heavily edited text are harder to verify - Why Anthropic's secret detection key matters - Why Google currently can't validate Claude's watermark - Whether Google could use AI watermarking as an SEO ranking signal - What Ahrefs' research says about AI-generated pages ranking in Google - Why AI content and bad content shouldn't be treated as the same thing - Where AI watermarking could matter for agencies, clients, and contracts - The potential EU disclosure requirements for publishers - Why human review and editorial responsibility matter - My take on whether this changes anything for SEO - Why generic AI content could still create problems even without an AI-content penalty - Why trust, original data, strong opinions, fact-checking, and editorial review matter more than whether AI touched the content - An example of AI-generated content that I genuinely enjoyed - How we're using AI-assisted SEO content on a new SaaS while targeting bottom-of-funnel keywords I also discuss Ahrefs' data on AI content in Google. Their research found AI-generated and heavily AI-assisted pages ranking throughout the search results, including at the top. The bigger issue appears to be something SEO has dealt with long before generative AI existed: bad content. My view is simple: if the output is enjoyable, novel, useful, accurate, and properly reviewed, the fact that AI was involved doesn't automatically make it bad content. The bigger long-term question is what happens to brands that publish large amounts of generic AI content without developing a recognizable voice, adding original information, taking meaningful positions, or earning trust with their audience. AI can help make great content. It can also make a lot of mediocre content very quickly. The difference is what the person using it actually puts into the process. ⭐️ Ahrefs: Claude Now Watermarks Everything It Writes - https://ahrefs.com/blog/claude-now-watermarks-everything-it-writes/ ⭐️ My post on - https://x.com/edwardeachday/status/2089307227064500665 ⭐️ Ep 1110 - Google's Next SEO Apocalypse: The Scaled AI Content Crackdown Is Coming - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w66ME9-IRQ ⭐️ Ep 1124 - YouTube's AI Detector Is Punishing Real Creators - Is Google Search Next? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33QKtsBy9As ⭐️ Super Mario Bros 3 Jazz Lo-fi Remix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNjuiOd1c1I 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 Claude Watermark Panic 00:31 What Watermarking Means 01:58 EU AI Act Compliance 03:08 How Text Watermarks Work 03:58 Limits and Detection Keys 04:25 Google Rankings Impact 06:07 SEO Community Reactions 07:22 My Skeptical Take 08:49 Real Risk Reputation 11:23 AI LoFi Success Story 13:24 Using AI for SEO 14:54 Wrap Up and Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #seopodcast

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  Episode #1139

  Image Backlinks Work Better Than You Think (Here's How to Get Them)

  Aug 17, 20269 minS1

  E1139: Image backlinks work surprisingly well for SEO, and one old experiment found they could even outperform exact-match anchor text links. I break down an SEO experiment from Dan Petrovic that tested four different types of backlinks to see which had the greatest effect on rankings. The test compared: - An exact-match anchor text backlink - A naked URL placed after the target keyword - An image backlink using the target keyword as the image alt text - A "click here" backlink with the target keyword placed near the link The result that stood out: the image backlink with the target keyword in the alt text performed better than every other link type in the experiment, including the exact-match anchor text link. The experiment was conducted in 2013, so I also look at whether the idea still matters today: Linked image alt text is still treated as anchor text for SEO purposes. I also cover more recent research from Kevin Indig and Semrush analyzing 35,000 backlink data points across 1,000 domains, which found that image backlinks correlated more strongly with AI search visibility than text links. Then I get into the practical part: how to actually build backlinks using images. We break down: - Why image backlinks affect search rankings - What Dan Petrovic's anchor text proximity experiment tested - Why the image backlink beat the other link types - How Google uses image alt text as anchor text - Why image backlinks may also matter for visibility in AI search - How to use infographics, charts, photos, maps, and product images for link building - How reverse image search can uncover websites already using your images - David McSweeney's TRUST formula for creating images journalists and bloggers may want to use - How to find topics journalists are already covering - How to turn research and data into simple visual assets - How to find journalists and bloggers who may be interested in your images - Why niche-specific stock photos can continue generating backlink opportunities after you publish them - Why you should still be careful with exact-match anchor text I explain a simple image strategy: create original niche-specific photos, charts, data visualizations, infographics, or other useful images and make them available on stock image platforms. If bloggers, journalists, or other websites use those images, they may credit the source. You can also periodically reverse image search your work to find websites that used an image without attribution and contact them to request a source link. The important point is that link building does not always have to start with asking someone to link to a page. You can create assets people already have a reason to use. ⭐️ SEO Sherpa: SEO Experiments - https://seosherpa.com/seo-experiments/ ⭐️ Dejan Marketing: Anchor Text Proximity Experiment - https://dejanmarketing.com/anchor-text-proximity-experiment/ ⭐️ Growth Memo: How AI Really Weighs Your Links - https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-ai-really-weighs-your-links-analysis ⭐️ Ahrefs: Build Links with Images - https://ahrefs.com/blog/build-links-with-images/ ⭐️ Charles_SEO on - https://x.com/Charles_SEO/status/2021835662538813870 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 Image Backlinks Surprise 00:37 Dan Petrovic Experiment Setup 01:56 Results Image Alt Text Wins 02:27 Still Relevant Today 03:09 Link Worthy Image Ideas 03:42 TRUST Formula for Visuals 04:46 Outreach and Promotion 05:02 Stock Photos Backlink Hack 05:50 Reverse Image Search Links 06:28 Avoid Over Optimization 06:38 Optimize Well Find Great Keywords 08:55 Sign Off The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #linkbuilding #backlinks

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  Episode #1138

  How James Dooley Starts a New SEO Site (650 Industries Deep)

  Aug 15, 202620 minS1

  E1138: How does James Dooley start a brand-new SEO site with 650 industries worth of SEO experience? James walks through how he evaluates a new SEO opportunity from the beginning, including when he'll use a fresh exact-match domain, when he'll buy an aged domain, how he evaluates the backlink profile before buying, and how he turns simple lead generation sites into larger brands. We also get into the economics behind local lead generation, why James thinks SEOs put too much weight on DR, and what "good content" actually means when the goal is to rank and convert. James explains why the strategy changes completely depending on the market. A low-competition local site might be built and earning quickly, while industries like finance or iGaming can require powerful aged domains, significantly more authority, and a completely different risk tolerance. We cover: - How James decides whether a new SEO opportunity is worth pursuing - Why his team analyzes search volume and CPC when entering new industries - Fresh domains vs. aged domains vs. exact-match domains - When an EMD makes sense for local SEO and long-tail keywords - Why competitive finance niches can require established authority - What James looks for before buying an aged domain - Why DR alone can give you a misleading picture of a domain - How he evaluates branded anchors, naked URLs, spam, trust, and backlink quality - The SEO tools and metrics his team combines when analyzing domains - Why an existing Google Business Profile can make a domain more attractive - The economics of buying high-value aged domains - How aggressive iGaming operators can rank repurposed domains extremely quickly - Why James is moving away from the churn-and-burn side of iGaming - How he approaches local lead generation sites - Why 50 targeted service/location pages can sometimes be enough to start - How a small lead gen site can fund the next site and eventually become a portfolio - James's definition of good SEO content - Why some pages can rank with only a few sentences - Why content should be "as short as possible but as long as necessary" - The problem with burying answers inside thousands of words of unnecessary content - How James turns an SEO site into a real brand - Citations, reviews, Google Business Profiles, case studies, awards, social profiles, and third-party reputation signals - How AI makes it easier to distribute brand assets across multiple platforms James has spent years repeating this process across hundreds of industries, so this episode is less about one isolated tactic and more about the decision-making process behind starting an SEO project from zero. If you're building your first site, launching another lead generation property, evaluating an aged domain, or deciding how much authority a new project actually needs, this episode gives you James Dooley's approach from the ground up. ⭐️ Ep 1131 - James Dooley & David Quaid: The SEO "Best Practices" We Ignore - https://youtu.be/jW8hYUn99Uk ⭐️ James Dooley's website - https://jamesdooley.com/ ⭐️ James Dooley on - https://x.com/james_dooley ⭐️ James Dooley on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameszdooley/ ⭐️ James Dooley on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jameszdooley/ ⭐️ James Dooley on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/james.dooley1/ ⭐️ James Dooley on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@JamesDooley 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 Background 00:56 How James Starts Sites 01:19 New Site Context Matters 01:53 EMDs in Finance 03:06 650 Industries Explained 05:39 Aged Domains Strategy 09:05 Tools and Anchor Checks 11:35 iGaming Churn and Burn 13:46 Local Lead Gen Blueprint 14:37 Good Content Definition 16:51 Building a Brandable Site 18:50 David Quaid Call In 19:13 Wrap Up and Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #blackhatseo #digitalmarketing

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  Episode #1137

  How to Get Recommended by Google Maps AI | Darren Shaw

  Aug 14, 202658 minS1

  E1137: Local SEO is changing as Google Maps becomes more AI-driven. I'm joined by Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark and one of the most respected people in local SEO, to break down Google's Ask Maps AI and what businesses need to do to get recommended. Ask Maps combines Gemini with Google's location data, Google Business Profiles, reviews, Maps activity, and other signals to answer detailed local questions and recommend specific businesses. Darren believes this is where local search is heading, and that traditional Google Maps rankings may eventually become increasingly AI-driven. We cover what actually influences these recommendations and what local businesses should focus on now. In this episode: - What Google Ask Maps AI is and how it differs from normal Google Maps search - Why Darren thinks AI-driven results could eventually become the default experience in Maps - Why ranking well in traditional local search still gets you most of the way toward showing up in Ask Maps - How to fully optimize your Google Business Profile for AI recommendations - Why every service in your GBP should have a detailed description - How Google uses your products, attributes, posts, photos, videos, and social profiles - Why reviews are one of the strongest signals for Ask Maps - How to ask customers for reviews that give Google more useful information about your business - Why review responses may matter more now that AI can reference them - Why you should diversify reviews beyond Google - How to use Ask Maps itself as a local SEO research tool - How to uncover the most common customer complaints and pain points in your market - How to find third-party websites Google references for businesses in your industry - How Ask Maps can reveal information about competitors and service-area businesses - Why Reddit, local communities, and broader brand mentions matter for AI visibility - A simple Reddit strategy for local businesses - Why sponsoring and participating in local events can strengthen your brand presence - Local SEO tactics Darren considers low-value, including Google stacking and local business schema - Why NAP consistency is becoming more important again with AI search - Why citation optimization matters more than obsessing over every minor citation inconsistency - Why your website still has a major influence on Ask Maps - Why you should have separate pages for every major service and sub-service - How FAQs and query fan-out can uncover questions to answer on service pages - Why pricing information should be included on your website - How to use Ask Maps to find obscure services your competitors aren't covering - When competitor comparison pages make sense and when they become manipulative - Why proximity matters less in AI-driven Maps results than traditional local rankings - How personalization changes which businesses different people get recommended - How search history, Maps history, Gemini activity, and other Google data can influence recommendations - Why there may no longer be one universal "#1 ranking" in local AI search - How often Darren recommends refreshing important pages and Google Business Profile content - How to manually measure Ask Maps visibility despite probabilistic results - Why prompt tracking requires multiple searches across multiple AI systems - Darren's highest-priority local SEO actions for businesses that don't have time to do everything Darren's core recommendation is simple: completely fill out your Google Business Profile, create strong pages for every service you offer, add useful FAQs, and consistently collect detailed customer reviews. Those fundamentals mattered before AI, and they remain the foundation for getting recommended by Google Maps AI. ⭐️ Darren Shaw's first time on the pod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1awWMG1e5kY ⭐️ Local Search Ranking Factors: https://whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors/ ⭐️ Whitespark's local SEO software and services: https://whitespark.ca/ ⭐️ The Whitespark Local Update Podcast: https://whitespark.ca/the-whitespark-local-update-podcast/ ⭐️ Darren's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/whitesparkca ⭐️ Darren's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darrenshawseo/ ⭐️ Darren's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenshawwhitespark/ ⭐️ Darren's Threads: https://www.threads.com/@darrenshawseo ⭐️ Darren's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darrenshawseo/ ⭐️ Darren's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@darrenshawseo 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 Ask Maps AI Intro 00:57 What Ask Maps Does 03:35 Future of Local Search 04:49 Core Ranking Tactics 06:07 Optimize Your GBP 11:49 Reviews That Drive AI 16:31 Ask Maps Research Hacks 21:54 Branding Signals Matter 23:00 Reddit and Community Playbook 25:17 Local Events and Subreddits 27:55 Local SEO Time Wasters 29:16 Geotags and Google Stacking 30:37 Why Schema Backfires 32:05 Citations and NAP for AI 33:37 Service Pages and FAQs 35:19 Pricing and Hidden Services 37:27 Accordion FAQs and AI Parsing 39:40 Comparison Pages Done Right 42:05 Proximity vs Reputation in AI 44:06 Personalized Ask Maps Results 47:45 Freshness and GBP Posting 50:50 Measuring Ask Maps Visibility 52:04 Prompt Tracking Reality Check 53:47 80-20 Local SEO Checklist 54:52 Whitespark Tools and Wrap-Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #localseo #googlebusinessprofileoptimization #searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization

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