§ 01 · The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Four things at once: AI spam getting smoked, local directories cratering, Search Console links vanishing, and the SEO internet catching fire. Edward Sturm opens episode 1,054 of his daily show the same way he opens all of them — with everything on the table before the intro is over.
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:08
01 · Hook: four things happening right now
Overview of the May 2026 core update scope — AI spam detection, GSC glitch, local SEO shifts, community panic.
01:08 – 03:28
02 · AML Corp: AI blog wiped from search
Gagan Ghotra tweet + site verification showing AML Corp's entire AI-generated blog subfolder removed from Google index. Traffic spike then crash.
03:28 – 06:42
03 · Local directories getting hammered
Reddit post from DigitalNomads_HQ tracking an Australian directory site — 75% of near-me terms declined in 48 hours. Information gain principle explained.
06:42 – 07:52
04 · When directories still have value
Host adds nuance: directories can survive when the brands they cover do a poor job of self-representing online.
07:52 – 09:27
05 · GSC links report broken
Search Engine Roundtable article: Google Search Console link report showing zero links for many SEOs. Almost certainly a bug, not a real link loss.
09:27 – 10:34
06 · Community reaction: Search Engine Roundtable comments
Host reads negative community comments, notes that SER comment sections are always catastrophic during core updates — not a signal, just the culture.
10:34 – 12:24
07 · Bottom-of-funnel is stable — personal data
Host shares his own GSC data: slight uptick, no volatility on bottom-of-funnel content. Explains top vs. bottom funnel with concrete keyword examples.
12:24 – 13:03
08 · Compact Keywords course CTA
Course pitch: compactkeywords.com — full course on finding and converting bottom-of-funnel searchers. Four customer reviews read aloud.
13:03 – 13:25
09 · Sign-off
1,054 days straight, no days missed. Standard show outro.
Lines you could clip.
04:40
"Google's not interested in middlemen for local intent anymore."
05:10
"The question Google seems to be asking every page: does this add something the rest of the web doesn't already have?"
10:35
"Bottom of funnel content is great because when you do it properly, it's completely stable."
08:18
"This does not mean that the links disappeared. They most likely didn't."
Things they pointed at.
Word for word.
HOOK opening / re-engagementCTA the pitch analogy
00:00HOOKGoogle just released its May core algorithm update. Right now, we're seeing improvements to Google's scaled AI detection algorithms. We're seeing major Google search console glitches.
00:11HOOKLocal SEO is getting impacted, and there's just general madness in the SEO community. If you don't know, Google core algorithm updates are always crazy.
00:21HOOKGoogle is literally updating its core algorithms. So what we see in the search engine results pages could change a lot. There's always a lot of fear, uncertainty,
00:32HOOKand doubt during core algorithm updates. And, you know, this one is no different, but we're going to make sense of it. This update is a two week rollout.
00:41HOOKIt started on May 21, but we have been seeing disturbances for days leading up to this. Lots of people were DMing me or posting in communities
00:53HOOKor sharing comments saying, is there an update? Is there an update? My organic traffic is going haywire.
01:00HOOKWhat is happening? There has to be an update. And then several days later, Google announces this update.
01:05HOOKThis update is called the Google May 2026 broad core update, and it is broad. It's affecting lots of different things within Google.
01:13Like I said, Google may have improved their scaled AI spam detection algorithms. And this is from Goggin Gotra, literally on the day that the update dropped. Goggin said, out of all the AI content hyperscaling
01:27domains that I have been tracking, AML corp blog subfolder seems like it has gotten a manual action today. Everything that they have been scaling in this subfolder over the last couple of months, AI generated content is no longer showing up in the search results.
01:43So ALM Corp's entire blog has been dropped from Google. If you just search ALM Corp blog, nothing shows. If you search their exact subfolder in Google, nothing shows.
01:56And by I mean, nothing shows when you search their blog, you don't get their blog. You get their homepage, you get Reddit, you get their blog actually in another language, but you don't get their English blog.
02:07And when you look at the organic traffic that this blog was getting, it is a crazy
02:14spike up. One of the just most dramatic spikes in organic traffic. Crazy increase in organic traffic.
02:21And when you look at the content, it's really, really, really bad, and it's all AI. It's huge blocks of long paragraphs with very few to no images.
02:32I'm actually seeing no images, and it's AI generated. It's it's AI text, really dense, thick to read, no images except for all of the heading images,
02:44which are entirely AI. And it's all over the place. Tons of different topics.
02:48Paul McCartney live. LinkedIn expands ad performance. Nike k d 19 times knocked.
02:55This is, I mean, this is crazy. Whoever works at all Allm Corp should be listening to this podcast because they would not have done this. I I really can't believe this.
03:03And you know what? I was saying earlier, maybe Google has increased its spam detection algorithms, but this one is making so many mistakes. Any rudimentary
03:14AI spam detection algorithm could probably detect this. This is just wild how bad this is, how atrocious this is. It it it is flying in the face of all the known SEO best practices,
03:28but it did drop again around the time that this May core algorithm update released. So the drop because this this worked for a bit, this scaled for a bit, this drop might be due to this core algorithm update. I mentioned at the start that it looks like local SEO is getting impacted.
03:46This is from the digital marketing subreddit. User digital nomads h q wrote this. Early observations on the May 2026 core update and directories are getting hammered.
03:57The update started rolling out around forty eight hours ago, and the data is already messy. I've been tracking a well known Australian directory site that was sitting in positions one through three for basically every near me query you can think of.
04:10Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, cleaners, the lot. Here's a snapshot from the last forty eight hours.
04:16They dropped from position one to position six for plumber near me, losing 3,400 clicks. They dropped from position one to position 10 for cleaners near me, dropped from position three to position 15 for car detailing near me, just entirely gone from page one for hairdressing near me, and entirely gone for gardening services near me.
04:3975% of their near me terms declined. Google's not interested in middlemen for local intent anymore.
04:46If someone searches plumber near me, the options are a, show a directory that scraped 50 plumbers off the web, or b, show the actual plumber with 200 reviews and fifteen years of trading history. Google already has maps, business profiles, and AI overviews handling that surface. The directory doesn't add anything to the equation.
05:05This looks like information gain in action. The question Google seems to be asking every page, does this add something the rest of the web doesn't already have? Aggregator slash directory content struggles to answer yes.
05:18If you run an actual local business, this is probably good news. Google Business Profile is back to being the most important piece of your digital footprint. Still rolling out, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
05:29Curious if anyone else is seeing a similar movement. One commenter, proud response eight five five said, been watching this rollout too, and the local business owners I work with are basically celebrating right now.
05:42One electrician client went from page three to position two for his main keyword overnight. The directory thing makes total sense though. Why would Google send someone to a site that just lists 20 plumbers when they can show the actual plumbers Google business profile with real photos, recent reviews, and direct contact information?
06:03Directories were basically just an extra step in the user journey that didn't need to exist. So local is all over the place. Local directories could be hurting.
06:12Now I could actually see directories being relevant in situations or aggregators being relevant in situations where brands are doing a very poor job of giving details on themselves. You see that all the time. Brands that don't know how to do SEO,
06:27they don't have a lot of information on themselves out on the Internet. Not very often. Directories and aggregators,
06:33they might put more information or more information in a clear way about these brands than the brands have themselves, making it easier for users to understand what a brand is about. And in that situation, a directory could be really valuable.
06:49There was another comment in a different subreddit, in the local SEO subreddit, about this Google May core update. This one commenter, I am, uh, Nish Kumar Singh said, just saw this two second core update already in 2026,
07:05and we're not even halfway through this year. Two weeks rollout means rankings will be choppy for a bit, so it's worth telling clients not to panic if they see swings this week. Is anyone already noticing movement in the local pack results, or is it too early?
07:20As I mentioned at the start, Google Search Console is also going crazy. Search engine roundtable has an article Google Search Console links report is broken. And it says, and lots of people, lots and lots and lots of people have been reporting this across x, across Reddit, everywhere.
07:35Search engine roundtable says, it looks like the Google Search Console link report has gone haywire and is broken pretty badly. Tons of SEOs are seeing zero links in the report, whereas others are seeing huge drops in the link counts in the report. It is not uncommon to see fluctuations,
07:52even significant ones in the link report. I've been keeping a log recently over here, but this is big, so looks like something significant broke in the code or data where tons of links are dropping out of the report. And this is meaningful because you want to have a lot of backlinks, a lot of links to get authority within Google so you can rank well.
08:12Lots of SEOs check this report constantly, but this does not mean that the links disappeared. They most likely didn't.
08:19This means that there's a glitch within Google Search Console at the same time as this May core update. Lots of people are literally just seeing no data in their Google Search Console for their links. Going into search engine roundtable's
08:34blog posts about this core update, the commenters on the update touch upon the backlinks disappearing within Google Search Console, but there's also general chatter just on this core update. I'm gonna share that, but before I share that, I wanna give a warning, which is that I don't think I have ever seen a comment section of search engine roundtable
08:54that has been SEOs who have been positive about them getting traffic, especially with core updates. The core update comments are always jokes or just we're all dead. SEO is dead.
09:07Everything's done. This is the worst. But, I mean, this is some of the streets within SEO, so we wanna just see what the communities are saying.
09:15And this is some of the things that they are saying. Just in time for me officially coming back to work after a severe burnout and nervous breakdown, first official day back and the traffic tanks.
09:27Now that's what Google calls a warm welcome. Somebody else said Google organic has been dead for a few years now. Another person said, we should just call it the final nail in the coffin update like someone mentioned in the comments because from here on out, I doubt any of us would care about SEO anymore.
09:45Not that I care because I stopped publishing articles for a long time since, but paid ads isn't doing anything too. This line is totally dead. I'm telling you, the comments are always negative within search engine roundtable around core algorithm updates.
10:00Personally, I've actually noticed a slight uptick for my websites within Google Search Console. Neither my bottom of funnel nor top of funnel content has seen much volatility, and I've always had the bottom of funnel content be more stable where I have actually experienced volatility on the top of funnel stuff. Top of funnel is informational content.
10:21So that could be like how to humanize chatty p t content. That would be an example of a top of funnel search within Google. How to humanize chatty p t content.
10:29That's people looking for an answer, not looking to use anything. Or transactional, bottom of funnel would be searches like voice notes for dentists or emergency roof repair Austin.
10:40Those are people literally looking to use a tool or get in touch with a business. That is bottom of funnel content. Bottom of funnel content is great because when you do it properly, it's completely stable.
10:52I always see bottom of funnel content be completely stable. I saw it through Google's helpful content update. I've seen it through every major core update.
11:00Bottom of funnel focuses on finding searchers who are literally looking to go to a business to use a tool, to buy something, to take an action, especially identifying keywords that are going under targeted, where you don't have other businesses vying for the same search terms.
11:20That part isn't an aspect of bottom of funnel, but that's the way that I do bottom of funnel. And a lot of bottom of funnel terms are just that way naturally because there's less people at the bottom of the funnel. Because there's less people, there's less search volumes.
11:32And because there's less search volumes, less marketers bother to target these keywords. So there's less content on the Internet for bottom of funnel searches
11:42with with that has the most intent. And that makes it easier to rank for these keywords, but then also have stability with your rankings because nobody else is targeting the keywords. I have an entire course on this method of SEO.
11:55It's called compact keywords. It's a thing on my shirt. I spent a year making it.
11:58I update it several times a month. Last week, I updated it twice, and it is entirely on how to find searchers looking to take action to become customers, users, or call a business, how to make pages
12:12that rank and convert these searchers at the same time, how to build links, how to do a technical audit, so much in this course. If you haven't checked it out yet, you will love it.
12:22CTAIt's at compactkeywords.com. These are four reviews I got on the twenty first. One person said, if you are tired of SEO advice that sounds smart but never translates into actual customers, this is the one.
12:34CTAIt is built around how buyers actually search, not how marketers wish they would search. Buy it. Somebody else said, I completed the course, but I would say it's the correct way to do SEO.
12:45CTAAnother person said, concise and straight to the point. And the last person said, I bought the course earlier today, and I'm on the on page SEO videos. This is a super comprehensive SEO course.
12:56CTAGreat work. Thank you everybody for those reviews. Thank you everyone who's gotten the course so far.
13:01CTAAgain, that is at compactkeywords.com. That is everything for this episode of the Edward show. This is my daily search engine optimization podcast.
13:09One thousand fifty four days in a row doing this show. No days missed. If you watch us on YouTube, thank you so much for watching.
13:18If you listened on Spotify or Apple podcasts, thank you so much for listening. And I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye.
— full transcript
§ 05 · For Joe
The one SEO strategy that survives every core update.
WHAT TO LEARN
Core updates punish content that doesn't add anything the web doesn't already have — the only consistent safe harbor is transactional, intent-matched content that targets searchers ready to act.
- AI-generated content at scale without original research or editorial judgment is now a manual-action risk, not just an algorithmic one — AML Corp's 166K-visitor blog was wiped from Google in a single update cycle.
- Google already owns the local middleman layer through Maps, Business Profiles, and AI Overviews — a directory site survives only if it adds information a brand's own presence doesn't already provide.
- The Information Gain principle is the practical test: if your page doesn't add something the rest of the web doesn't already have, it's structurally vulnerable to every future core update.
- Bottom-of-funnel transactional keywords attract fewer searchers but also fewer competing pages — lower competition plus high purchase intent produces rankings that hold through volatility.
- When Google Search Console shows zero links during a core update rollout, assume a reporting bug first — algorithmic and data-pipeline changes often coincide, and links rarely disappear overnight at scale.
- Core update panic in SEO communities is a constant, not a signal — the host has watched 1,054 episodes of catastrophic SER comment sections that did not accurately predict what happened to his own traffic.
