The Edward Show

About 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.

Publisher

Edward Sturm

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Jul 2023

Latest episode

11 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1,193 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Oct 2026

   6,337 Cold Emails Reveal What Actually Gets Replies (And Backlinks)

   E1194: Cold outreach is one of the most effective ways to build backlinks, earn media coverage, and get your content in front of the right people. But most outreach emails get ignored. A Reddit user analyzed 6,337 cold emails and uncovered striking differences in reply rates based on email length, subject lines, follow-ups, and who receives the message. I break down these findings, share advice from experienced link builders, and explain the cold outreach strategies I've personally used to get viral videos onto national television, earn coverage from major publications, and promote businesses. What the data from 6,337 cold emails reveals: - Emails under 100 words earned an 11.9% reply rate. - Emails between 100 and 200 words earned just 1.9%. - Emails over 200 words earned a 0.3% reply rate. - The ideal email length fell between 60 and 90 words. - One email earned a 4.1% reply rate. One follow-up increased that to 6.6%. - Two follow-ups increased replies to 6.9%, with diminishing returns beyond that. - Subject lines under 30 characters achieved an 83.7% open rate, compared to 69.5% for longer ones. - Subject lines containing numbers performed particularly well. - Tuesday and Wednesday outperformed Thursday and Friday. How to get more replies to your link-building outreach: - Personalize every message. Generic templates immediately signal mass outreach. - Lead with something valuable to the recipient rather than asking for a favor. - Keep subject lines short and make the first sentence immediately relevant. - Find the right person. At larger companies, department heads and managers often make more sense than CEOs. - Offer original research, useful statistics, corrections, or genuinely interesting content. - Use broken links as an opportunity to suggest relevant replacement resources. - Track positive replies rather than total replies to understand which offers work. - Follow up once or twice rather than repeatedly chasing people. - Use email tracking tools to understand whether recipients open your messages. My own cold outreach experiences: I've spent years pitching journalists, YouTubers, bloggers, and other content creators. I explain how I used concise, targeted outreach to get extraordinary results. - 2012: My friends and I created a video where fake bodyguards and paparazzi convinced strangers in Times Square that an ordinary guy was a celebrity. I pitched the video on Reddit, reached the site's front page, and ended up on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and NBC's The Jeff Probst Show. - 2009–2010: A crazy driving stunt video sat unnoticed on YouTube for a year. I pitched it to automotive publications, and Jalopnik featured it on its homepage for two days. - 2018: We created an early blockchain video game and helped establish the play-to-earn genre. I reached out to major cryptocurrency YouTubers, and one of the largest channels covered our project. The same principles apply to SEO link building. Create something genuinely interesting, find people whose audiences care about it, and send concise, personalized messages explaining its relevance. You don't need another generic guest posting template. You need a compelling reason for somebody to open your email, read your content, and share it. ⭐️ Reddit: What Makes Link Outreach Get Replies? - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1vqym2j/what_makes_link_outreach_actually_get_replies/ ⭐️ Reddit: Breaking Into PR (6,337 Cold Emails Analyzed) - https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicRelations/comments/1u2f71l/breaking_into_pr_is_mostly_a_coldoutreach_problem/ ⭐️ Short subject lines matter for newsletter open rates - https://read.first1000.co/p/things-matter-for-growing-a-newsletter ⭐️ Times Square fake celebrity video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYU1a0lTTTw 💎 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 Why Outreach Gets Ignored 01:10 Value First Link Building 02:01 Templates Kill Replies 03:39 PR Data on Email Length 05:13 Target the Right Person 05:55 Follow Ups and Subject Lines 07:23 Tracking Opens and Deliverability 07:59 Going Viral With Smart Pitches 11:00 Make It Easy to Share 11:43 Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #linkbuilding #backlinks #searchengineoptimization #seo

2. 

   9 Oct 2026

   How Long Does SEO Take? Google Finally Shares the Real Numbers

   E1192: How long does SEO actually take? Google's Gary Illyes shared specific timeframes for crawling, indexing, title changes, canonicalization, site migrations, manual action removals, and recovery from core updates. Some changes take hours. Others take months. And in certain cases, Google never processes them. Google's reported typical SEO timeframes: - New URL discovery: 20 hours. At the slowest, weeks or never. - Recrawling an existing URL: 1 month. At the slowest, weeks or never. - Sitemap processing: 1 day. At the slowest, 14 days or never, depending on quality. - Indexing: 1.5 hours. At the slowest, months or never. - Canonical changes: 1-3 weeks. At the slowest, months. - Site migrations: 1-3 months. At the slowest, 6 months to over a year. - Page title changes: 1-2 days. At the slowest, several weeks to months. - Search snippet changes: 1-2 days. At the slowest, several weeks to months. - Google Search Console removals: 2 hours. At the slowest, 24 hours. - Manual action removals: 1-2 weeks. At the slowest, 4-6 weeks or much longer for dormant sites. - Core update recovery: 3-6 months. At the slowest, 6 months to a year, often requiring another core update. These numbers represent typical ranges. Also covered: - Why crawling delays also delay indexing and other Google processes. - Why some URLs never get indexed, despite appearing in XML sitemaps. - Why Google sometimes takes months to recognize canonical changes. - Why recovering from a Google core update often requires waiting for another update. - Why a site migration might take more than a year to finish. - How website authority, backlinks, and traffic influence crawling and indexing speed. - My experience publishing a brand-new page that ranked #1 above The New York Times within five minutes. - Why established websites with real users, backlinks, and topical relevance often get their pages crawled and indexed faster. - Why low-authority websites with little traffic and few backlinks experience longer delays. - Why these reported timeframes matter when diagnosing SEO problems and setting client expectations. One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is that these timelines vary enormously between websites. I've personally published a new page, submitted it through Google Search Console, and watched it rank #1 above The New York Times within five minutes. The website had authority, real search traffic, backlinks, and strong topical relevance to the target keyword. Those things matter. If you want Google to discover, crawl, and refresh your pages faster, focus on building a website that attracts real visitors, earns backlinks, and gets shared. ⭐️ Google Shows How Long Crawling, Indexing & Recovery Can Take https://searchenginejournal.com/google-crawling-indexing-recovery-timing-ranges/591829/ ⭐️ Ep 939 How to Build Backlinks for a Brand New Website (From Zero Authority) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcNmYaMrM3o ⭐️ Ep 1160 How To Get Free Backlinks in 2026 (Methods That Actually Work) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5VL9o9RGQ 💎 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 Google Timing Overview 00:59 Indexing Recap Context 01:29 Key Timeframes Explained 02:13 Core Update Recovery Windows 03:00 Limits of the Data 03:32 Timing Table Breakdown 04:45 What It Means for Clients 05:34 Real World Fast Indexing Story 06:14 How to Speed Things Up 06:49 Link Building Resources 08:24 Final Thanks and Sign Off The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #technicalseo #digitalmarketing

3. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Parasite SEO: How Charles Floate Ranks Pages on Google.com Itself

   E1193: Charles Floate shares how he ranks parasite SEO pages on Google.com itself, gets those pages cited in Google's AI Overviews, and builds campaigns that generate thousands of dollars in revenue. With a full presentation, Charles breaks down his parasite SEO strategy, including the exact process he uses to find profitable keywords, identify powerful third-party domains, publish pages, get them indexed, and turn rankings into affiliate commissions. He also demonstrates how he automates parasite SEO with AI agents, including a system that published 10 pages in roughly 60 seconds and another that has created over 400 pages. We get into Google's site reputation abuse policy, the September 2026 spam update, how Google recently deindexed parasite pages on NotebookLM and Google Scripts, and why Charles believes Google's own domains remain some of the strongest opportunities in SEO. Topics covered: - What parasite SEO is and why high-authority websites outperform smaller domains - How Charles finds parasite opportunities on Google.com itself - Why Google.com and YouTube receive so much visibility in Google's AI Overviews - How parasite pages influence AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Bing, and Copilot - Why Google's September 2026 spam update benefited certain parasite websites - How Charles finds free parasite opportunities on LinkedIn, Reddit, Medium, GitHub, Spotify, and other platforms - How paid parasite placements on newspapers and magazines work - Why certain parasite pages rank on Google the same day they go live - How Charles identifies profitable keywords and low-competition SERPs - How to find affiliate programs and negotiate higher commissions - Why Charles focuses roughly 90% of his parasite campaigns on international, non-English markets - How to optimize titles, opening sentences, and page content for target keywords - Why people accidentally try to index the wrong parasite URLs - How to identify canonical URLs and indexing problems - How Charles uses AI agents, OpenClaw, and Chameleon Mode Pro to automate parasite SEO - How his automation published 10 parasite pages in roughly 60 seconds - How Grok Bot created more than 400 third-party pages for one brand - Why Google removed NotebookLM parasite pages from its search index - How Google recently deindexed another parasite opportunity involving Google Scripts - Why Charles believes Google's site reputation abuse policy has barely changed his strategy - How parasite SEO affects AI search results even when Google deindexes a page - Why parasite pages traditionally suffer from poor conversion rates - How AI Overviews change the conversion opportunity for parasite SEO - When Charles builds backlinks, buys internal links, or uses 301 redirects - Why internal links sometimes outperform expensive backlink campaigns - How Charles keeps certain parasite pages ranking for five years or longer - How a press release ranked number three on Google in nine minutes and changed an AI Overview's sentiment - Which press release providers Charles uses for parasite SEO and online reputation management - Why some press releases maintain rankings for years while others disappear - How competitors use fraudulent DMCA takedowns against parasite pages in iGaming - What barnacle SEO is and how it differs from black hat parasite SEO - How legitimate customer review videos create additional search visibility - Why Charles believes third-party mentions matter more in AI search - What Charles looks for before investing in a paid parasite placement - How he would approach a parasite SEO campaign with a $1,000 budget versus $5,000 - Why he recommends starting with contextual parasite pages - How AI agents automate prospecting, account creation, publishing, indexing, and tracking Charles also shares real examples of parasite pages that have survived multiple Google updates, explains what kept them ranking, and demonstrates the tools behind his automated campaigns. Whether you're interested in parasite SEO, affiliate SEO, AI search optimization, online reputation management, or black hat SEO experiments, this episode gives you a detailed look at what Charles is doing right now. ⭐️ Charles Floate's Rainmakers community - https://www.skool.com/ai-seo-rainmakers/about?ref=38c0628b17b741f6aeb947f8b0cd1b92 ⭐️ 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 💎 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 Parasite SEO Overview 00:51 Authority And UGC Signals 02:33 Free Versus Paid Parasites 05:02 Why Parasites Win 06:14 Site Reputation Abuse Risks 09:23 Automation And Ops Stack 13:52 Conversion Problems And Fixes 16:59 AI Overviews Boost Parasites 19:06 Five Step Parasite Process 21:29 Affiliate Offers Research 25:17 Keyword Targeting Tactics 27:23 Indexing Mistakes Canonicals 28:58 Google Parasite Crackdowns 35:07 Costs Links And Internal Links 36:49 Fast Wins Press Releases ORM 37:59 iGaming DMCAs War Zone 40:35 Press Release Longevity 43:18 Newswire Indexing Picks 44:37 Barnacle SEO Basics 46:54 Social Proof Reviews 47:27 AI Era Rule Changes 51:37 Spotting Easy SERPs 52:34 Click Bombing Signals 54:49 Keeping Parasites Alive 57:21 301 Redirect Playbook 59:30 Indexers and SRA Risk 01:01:03 Grok Bot Parasite Demo 01:06:56 Budget and Outreach Tips 01:10:25 Grok Bot vs DOTS 01:13:01 Podcast Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #blackhatseo #searchengineoptimization #parasiteseo #digitalmarketing

Who has been a guest on The Edward Show

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• David Quaid
• Jason Packer
• Jonathan Berthold
• James Dooley
• Jason Barnard

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

20,334,003

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

11 ratings

Spotify

4.6 / 5

48 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 86 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

100

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

90

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