Unconfirmed Google Update Wiping Out Top of Funnel Sites (Here’s What’s Surviving)
Release Date: 02/13/2026
Keyword Cannibalization: Why Your SEO Pages Compete (And How to Fix It)
The Edward Show
E1030: Keyword cannibalization - what it is, how to identify it, and how to fix it without wasting time on things that don’t move your business forward. This topic came from a detailed post in the SEO subreddit, along with real-world examples and insights from people actively working on sites. We also connect it back to how Google actually handles duplicate and competing content, and where people tend to get this wrong. Keyword cannibalization is often misunderstood. It’s not just about duplicate content - it’s about multiple pages on your site competing for the same intent, causing...
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E-Commerce Link Building That Actually Works with Kai Cromwell
The Edward Show
E1029: How e-commerce brands should build backlinks, especially Shopify brands. Kai Cromwell, an e-commerce SEO legend, joins the show for his second time. We cover what links are worth paying for, what links to avoid, how to evaluate link marketplaces, when to use cold email, and why most e-commerce brands should be careful about building too many links directly to product pages. Topics covered: - Where e-commerce brands should build backlinks from - When a new brand should avoid spending money on links - How much Kai recommends spending if you use link marketplaces - Why link insertions are...
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Google’s New SEO Reality: Why ‘Non-Commodity’ Content Is Taking Over
The Edward Show
E1028: Breaking down what Google is rewarding right now when it comes to SEO - and how so much “standard” content isn’t working. Last week at the Google Search Central Live Toronto event, a series of slides started circulating in the SEO community. One in particular stood out: the difference between commodity content and non-commodity content. This is a practical breakdown of that idea, what it means for your site, and how to apply it without losing rankings for keywords. I also share a simple ChatGPT prompt you can use to create titles that combine keyword targeting with real,...
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This AI SEO System Builds and Updates Revenue Pages Automatically
The Edward Show
E1027: Tryggvi Rafn rejoins the show to screenshare (on YouTube) the AI-powered SEO system he built from scratch over four months. This is not another “AI writes blog posts” workflow. The system is designed to discover, prioritize, and build revenue-driving pages automatically, using a combination of data pipelines, keyword clustering, and agent-based workflows. We walk through how it works end-to-end, including how it finds opportunities, creates content, and routes everything through a structured review process. What we cover: - How the system builds a “keyword universe” from...
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SEO Crawling Myths: Why Crawl Budget Isn’t Your Problem
The Edward Show
E1026: Breaking down common SEO crawling myths and explaining why “crawl budget” is usually not the real problem. We talk about crawling, indexing, authority, sitemaps, content pruning, duplicate content, and cannibalization. The legendary David Quaid, our guest, explains why more crawling does not mean better rankings, why XML sitemaps do not magically fix indexing issues, and why authority is often the missing piece when pages are crawled but not indexed. Topics covered: - Can you actually optimize crawling? - Why crawl budget is misunderstood - Crawled not indexed vs. discovered not...
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He Ranked #1 on Google With 35 Words (No SEO)
The Edward Show
E1025: Matt Diamante breaks down how he built a simple one-page tool that ranked #1 on Google with almost no content and no traditional SEO work. The site is LinkGap.io, a backlink gap analysis tool he built in a single afternoon using AI. It has roughly 35 words on the page, no meta description, no analytics, and almost no backlinks - yet it ranks and generates thousands of leads. This conversation walks through exactly how it was built, how it gained traction, and why it’s working despite breaking most SEO “rules.” What you’ll learn: - How Matt built a working SaaS-style tool in a...
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SEO Veteran Debates AI Search Founder on What Gets You Into LLMs
The Edward Show
1024: An experienced SEO practitioner and an AI search founder debate what gets a brand surfaced inside large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. The conversation starts with a core disagreement: is generative engine optimization just an extension of SEO, or is it a fundamentally different discipline? From there, it expands into how AI systems actually produce answers, what “query fan-out” means in practice, and if most traditional SEO frameworks may not translate cleanly into AI-driven environments. This episode breaks down how both sides approach the problem in the real...
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Google Discover Secrets: How One Article Can Drive 5M+ Daily Clicks
The Edward Show
E1023: How Google Discover works and why it can outperform traditional SEO by a massive margin. Google Discover isn’t driven by search queries. It’s driven by attention. If you understand how to stop the scroll, you can unlock traffic levels that most publishers never reach. This episode is based on insights from Guilhem Chauvin, along with real-world experience publishing daily content and testing what actually gets clicks. We cover the key differences between SEO and Discover, why most content fails in the Discover feed, and what you need to change if you want consistent traffic from it....
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Patrick Stox Exposes the Biggest SEO Myths in 2026
The Edward Show
E1022: Patrick Stox of Ahrefs breaks down what actually matters in SEO right now and what doesn’t. We cover a wide range of topics, from technical SEO and internal linking to AI content, programmatic SEO, and the growing conversation around GEO and large language models. Patrick shares practical insights from working on some of the largest websites in the world and building SEO tools used by thousands of companies. This conversation focuses on separating signal from noise. There are a lot of tactics being pushed in SEO today that sound convincing but don’t move rankings. Patrick explains...
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The ‘People Also Ask’ SEO Hack That Builds Authority & Drives Sales
The Edward Show
E1021: A simple SEO strategy built around Google’s “People Also Ask” questions - and how to turn them into a system for building topical authority, generating consistent traffic, and driving real conversions. Most marketers either ignore these questions or treat them as an afterthought. This episode shows how to structure them into a scalable content framework that not only ranks, but also feeds authority into your highest-value pages. The process is straightforward, but the leverage comes from how you connect everything together: question pages, internal links, and bottom-of-funnel...
info_outlineE954: We may be in the middle of another Google algorithm update - and for some sites, the impact has been severe.
From February 5th to February 7th, one of my top-of-funnel sites lost 50% of its organic traffic. Then, just a few days later, traffic rebounded completely. At the same time, my bottom-of-funnel pages remained stable.
In this episode, I break down what’s happening, what the SEO community is reporting, and why certain types of sites are getting hit harder than others.
We cover:
- The recent spike in Google search ranking volatility
- Reports from the SEO community and data from tracking tools
- How Google has not confirmed this update
- The connection (and non-connection) to the February 2026 Google Discover Core update
- Why informational and top-of-funnel content appears to be more volatile
- Why bottom-of-funnel SEO pages are remaining stable
- The risks of depending on Google Discover and pure ad revenue
- A practical strategy to shift from traffic-focused SEO to conversion-focused SEO
I also share:
- Real examples of volatility from WebmasterWorld and industry chatter
- My experience recovering from a 50% traffic drop
- How to identify overlooked purchase-intent keywords
- How to use competitor rankings to uncover under-optimized bottom-of-funnel opportunities
- Why “best X for Y” keywords are not the real opportunity
- How to create products, tools, or affiliate plays that reduce algorithm risk
If your strategy relies heavily on informational traffic, news content, or ad monetization, this episode will help you rethink your keyword targeting.
The core takeaway: volatility tends to hit broad, informational queries much harder than narrowly targeted purchase-intent queries. There are still large gaps in Google’s results for specific bottom-of-funnel searches - and those gaps are where stability and revenue are being built.
⭐️ Google Search Ranking Volatility Gets Heated Again February 10th - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-february-10-40910.html
⭐️ Google Is Firing Shots: Self-Promotional Listicles Are Getting Wiped Out - https://youtu.be/5cwyFAElmw0
⭐️ Google Just Cut News Traffic in Half (51% → 27%) - Now What? - https://youtu.be/r6f9wS_SVcM
⭐️ Vibe Coding for SEO: Building Rankable Apps, Tools, and Revenue in Minutes - https://youtu.be/-Cn03azU0GY
💎 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 Introduction to the Google Algorithm Update
00:33 SEO Community Reactions and Insights
01:50 Personal Experiences and Observations
03:41 Strategies for Navigating Algorithm Changes
05:54 Keyword Targeting Recommendations
07:59 Creating and Selling Products
09:36 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
The Edward Show. The #1 search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
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