The argument in one line.
Google's AI search overhaul ends the era of blue links for publishers and affiliates, but brands selling their own products at the bottom of the funnel will survive because purchase intent still drives clicks.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- Brand owners and product sellers worried about Google I/O's AI search overhaul who want a calm, non-panic read on the actual impact
- SEO practitioners who want a clear distinction between what's changing for publishers versus what's changing for bottom-of-funnel product pages
- Affiliate marketers and content site owners who want an honest assessment of how much risk they're actually carrying right now
SKIP IF…
- Viewers expecting a technical SEO deep dive — this is a thoughtful solo-host reaction episode, not a tactics guide
- Anyone not running an online business with search traffic as a meaningful acquisition channel
The full version, fast.
Google's I/O announcement officially ends the ten-blue-links era: a redesigned search box that accepts long prompts and images, generates interactive visualizations, builds lightweight SaaS tools on demand, and coordinates multiple agents to gather and compile answers. The panic response from the SEO community is partly overblown. Bottom-of-funnel searches — someone ready to buy a specific product from a specific brand — are still resolved by clicking through to a product page, because AI overviews don't fulfill a purchase. The brands genuinely at risk are publishers and affiliate sites whose value was intercepting informational queries that Google can now answer directly. Selling your own products through search is more durable than the coverage suggests.
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00:00 – 00:28
01 · The headline
TechCrunch quote: era of 10 blue links is officially over. Promise: my thoughts on Google I/O + May core update.
00:28 – 01:36
02 · What Google actually announced
Expanding search box accepts ultra-long prompts and images. AI predicts the next parts of your prompt.
01:36 – 02:51
03 · The wild new capabilities
Interactive visualizations, vibe-coding SaaS inside search, agent monitoring for pricing/stock changes, multi-agent answer compilation.
02:51 – 04:25
04 · People are lazy — behavior won’t change fast
People want short prompts and instant answers. Long-prompt behavior is years away from mainstream.
04:25 – 05:14
05 · ChatGPT bit + the thesis
Comedic ChatGPT exchange proves the lazy-user point. Pivots to: the tactics that work now will keep working.
05:14 – 06:58
06 · The surviving playbook
Bottom-of-funnel content. Scenario/use-case pages. Thorough documentation. Online reputation management. Comparison and alternative pages.
06:58 – 08:31
07 · Who actually bleeds
Publishers and affiliates. Helpful Content Update already decimated niche sites. AI strips affiliate links.
08:31 – 08:43
08 · The verdict
Brands + agencies fine. Affiliates/publishers should pivot to their own products.
08:43 – 10:01
09 · May 2026 core update
Google Search Central announcement. Blogs deranked. Barry Schwartz reports 100K+ link drops in Search Console.
10:01 – 11:01
10 · CTA: Compact Keywords
13.5-hour SEO course. Student testimonial from Boris. compactkeywords.com.
11:01 – 11:15
11 · Outro
1,053 days in a row.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- People have been declaring SEO dead for over two decades, and it still drives more revenue than most other channels.
- Brands selling their own products and services will be largely unaffected by AI search — it is publishers and affiliates who are bleeding.
- AI overviews strip affiliate links and recommend products without crediting the affiliate, eliminating commission without eliminating awareness.
- If you can rank, you should sell your own product — relying on affiliate commissions in an AI search era is a shrinking bet.
- Fewer competitors will try SEO because of AI panic, which could mean less competition for the brands that stay disciplined.
- Bottom-of-funnel content targeting decision-stage keywords — alternatives, comparisons, use cases — survives every algorithm shift because intent is explicit.
- Behavioral inertia will delay AI search adoption for years: people want the shortest possible prompt and the fastest possible answer.
- Online reputation management has always been part of SEO — it now also determines whether AI surfaces you at the decision stage.
- Google's new search box changes the input method, not the underlying motivation of people searching to buy something specific.
Steal the daily news-reaction format.
Edward Show playbook
The industry generates the content; you just need the expertise and the discipline to show up every day and give your take.
- Pick one niche where news breaks constantly (SEO, AI, DTC, whatever your audience cares about).
- Open with the headline, not the setup — start at the conclusion.
- Give your hot take in 30 seconds, then spend the rest backing it up with logic.
- Connect every episode to your core playbook — that’s how the content becomes the sales funnel.
- Daily consistency is the moat. 1,053 episodes is a number your audience can’t un-see.
- B-roll the actual source material (tweets, screenshots, articles) — it’s free and it’s credible.
Terms worth knowing.
- 10 blue links
- The traditional Google search results page format — a list of ten clickable website links — which has been the dominant interface for web search since the late 1990s.
- Google I/O
- Google's annual developer conference where the company announces new products, platform changes, and strategic initiatives across search, AI, Android, and its other services.
- AI overviews
- AI-generated summaries that Google places at the top of some search results pages, synthesizing information from multiple sources and answering the query directly before any traditional links appear.
- Bottom-of-funnel content
- Web pages and articles targeting searchers who already know what they want and are close to making a decision — for example, comparison pages, pricing pages, and use-case-specific landing pages.
- Online reputation management (ORM)
- The practice of monitoring and influencing what search results appear when someone looks up a brand or person's name, particularly content that surfaces during a buyer's due-diligence stage.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
- The practice of optimizing content so it gets cited or surfaced by AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT and Google's AI overviews, as distinct from traditional Google search ranking.
- Helpful Content Update
- A series of Google algorithm updates designed to demote content created primarily for search rankings rather than for human readers, which significantly reduced traffic for many niche content publishers.
- Affiliate (publishing model)
- A website or creator that earns commissions by linking to products they don't own — when a reader clicks the link and buys, the affiliate earns a cut of the sale.
- Core algorithm update
- A broad, periodic change to Google's search ranking system that can significantly shift which websites rank well, typically rolled out over one to two weeks.
- Google Search Console
- A free Google tool that shows website owners how their site performs in Google Search, including which pages are indexed, what keywords drive traffic, and any technical errors.
- White-label (product)
- A product or service made by one company but rebranded and sold by another under their own name, allowing resellers to offer a product without building it themselves.
Things they pointed at.
00:00linkTechCrunch: The era of the ten blue links is officially over
Lines you could clip.
04:14
“People are lazy. They don’t want to have to think. They want to do lazy searches or lazy prompts and get fast and accurate responses. And that is never going to change.”
07:35
“If you can rank, you should sell your own stuff.”
05:23
“This has always been part of SEO. It’s well known that when people are considering going with a product or service, they will do due diligence, and you want good stuff to show up.”
Word for word.
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analogystory
00:00The era of 10 blue links is officially over. At its Google IO conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI powered overhaul of search centered around a reimagined intelligent search box.
00:12What the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box debuted more than twenty five years ago. That is from TechCrunch. And lots of people have been asking me my thoughts on the Google search updates announced at Google IO.
00:30And so that's what I'm gonna give on this episode of the show because it is really, really crazy. And then also, Google just dropped a May core algorithm update. And so I'm gonna touch upon that at the end of the episode as well.
00:42This, by the way, is being recorded on May 21. But a few days ago, on Tuesday, Google announced these major changes to search. So the search box can now accommodate really long searches, basically like prompts.
00:57It will expand as you put in more information. You can put in images too. You can put in long queries like, I'm looking for the best inventory management software for a small bakery with eight employees, but without the expensive pricing of enterprise tools like NetSuite.
01:11I want to work well on a mobile app, help track ingredients and finished products, and integrate with my online store, which is built on WooCommerce. That would be an example of a super detailed prompt that somebody could do. And the search box would expand as a person wrote that.
01:26But let's say someone can't even think of all of that. Google will actually predict the next parts of your prompt to help you make these ultra long prompts. Google will give you dynamic experiences.
01:37You can generate interactive visualizations that you can return to again and again, again with the search box.
01:44You can build SaaS within search. You can say something like, build a fitness tracker to automate daily workouts and wellness routines.
01:52So you wanna build something for yourself? There you go. You can do it right there in search.
01:57You can have agents gather information for you, remember details about you, and constantly alert you. This could be pricing changes, related products, things that were out of stock that are now back in stock, new local deals, and get just way more thorough responses because you can have multiple agents search and compile an answer for you.
02:16And so when you hear all of this, you as an SEO or a business owner relying on SEO or maybe just somebody considering doing SEO, you might start to think that it has finally happened, that SEO is dead as pundits have been saying for over two decades now. Over two decades, people have been saying SEO is dead, and this is the reality.
02:39So here are my thoughts for all the people who have asked. These are these are my thoughts now. People want answers fast, and they don't want to wait for multiple agents to search things.
02:50Many AI overviews are near instant or just completely instant, and that is great.
02:56But the thing is a lot of these use cases that I described could take some time for responses to generate. There will be some situations where that's really awesome. If you're taking the time to give a thorough prompt, you won't mind waiting for agents to go compile a thorough answer.
03:12But that's the other thing. How many people are actually going to give thorough prompts? The thing is, it is a known behavior that people want to give the shortest prompts or searches possible.
03:24Look at ChatGPT. How many people are using voice to text to actually record really long prompts and put in the thought to share everything that would help an AI give you the best answer. If you do that, you will get there's a good chance that you will get a really good answer.
03:39But not a lot of people do that, and not a lot of people want to do that. Prompt prediction will be more helpful for people willing to write these long searches or prompts. But the thing is, it's going to be years before behavior changes so that so many more people are giving these long, more personal prompts.
03:57And I'll tell you why that is in a second. How about vibe coding the SaaS right there with in Google? Just saying, build me the fitness tracker.
04:05This still means that you have to be thoughtful about what you want. People don't want to be thoughtful. You have to think about the features that are going to give you what you want and that are going to help you.
04:14Basically, the principle is this. People are lazy. They don't want to have to think.
04:19They want to do lazy searches or lazy prompts and get fast and accurate responses.
04:25And that is never going to change. Hi, gbt. Hey there.
04:28Shut up. I need a note taking app that would generate $1,000,000,000 per year now.
04:34Well, let's Shut up. No flowery language.
04:37Just do it. Absolutely. No flowery language.
04:39So More concise. Got it. Straight to the point.
04:42If you really do it. Just do it. It can be great if search is remembering more about you, and it probably will.
04:49But even that doesn't change the fact that the tactics that are amazing now will continue to be amazing even when there are more thorough prompts being done. And so what tactics are these? Well, it's the tactics that I have been sharing on this show since starting the show.
05:05This means making bottom of funnel content, targeting scenarios and use cases and services you offer, making pages targeting this language, these searches that people are doing when they know what they want, but they don't know the brand that is going to give them what they want. It means having thorough documentation.
05:23So there's just a lot of information out there, especially on your site, about everything that your brand does. This means online reputation management, which I have news for some people. Some people don't they don't realize this, but this has always been part of SEO.
05:38It's well known that when people are considering going with a product or service, they will do due diligence, and you want good stuff to show up for the people in the due diligence stage. And guess what? That helps with AI.
05:50And all of this, it just helps you get surfaced at the decision stage, especially bottom of funnel content. Also, making comparisons where you compare your brand to a competing brand and you're targeting keywords are around the term alternative, like competitor plus the word alternative.
06:07This was a great tactic before ChatGPT, and it is still a great tactic. You still need to rank well in Google to get surfaced in AI.
06:15But I'll say, you know, if the agents do a good job keeping track of things for searchers, and it is really intuitive, that will be great for consumers, but it's not going to change what happens to businesses who are selling their own things. It's not really gonna change that very much. If you are a brand selling your services, selling your products, or you're an agency helping brands do that, not gonna change things that much.
06:39But you know what? You know what though? There are some people who are going to bleed from this.
06:44I'm not gonna deny that. So who is this going to be? It's really gonna hurt, and it's it's it's already been happening.
06:50It's publishers and it's affiliates. What has happened to publishers over the years has been so horrendous. You have the helpful content update demolishing so many independent niche publishers.
07:04And then on top of all of that, you have AI taking clicks from the ones who are still around. It is so insane what has happened to publishers. Affiliates as well.
07:14And a lot of publishers depend on affiliate commissions. The thing is, as an affiliate, you can be generating a lot of awareness for a product. The AI is going to see that.
07:23It's gonna strip out your affiliate link and recommend the product without it so you don't get the commission. So that'll hurt too. The hard reality, and I've been saying this on the show now for the last year, but in private, I've been saying this for years, is if you can rank, you should sell your own stuff.
07:40Actual businesses that sell their own things that are relying on search will be fine. Maybe even more than fine because there might be more people scared to try SEO. So actually, there could be less competition.
07:51Agencies relying on businesses who need SEO and geo, they'll be fine as well. Affiliates and publishers would be better if they figured out their own products and services to sell or white labeled other ones rather than doing affiliate or relying on AdSense.
08:09And I I I will say, you know, this TechCrunch article opened with the era of the 10 blue links is officially over. But later on in the article, they say, the links to Clarify have not entirely disappeared. They are just no longer the priority for many types of searches.
08:25Anyway, those are my thoughts on Google IO's update. Exciting changes for searchers, but it does not change the way that you should be doing SEO.
08:34It does, however, change the way that publishers and affiliates should run their businesses. The last thing to touch upon, Google Search Central posted, today we released the May 2026 core update.
08:46We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete. Again, I'm recording this on the twenty first, which is when this happened. Normally, I record these a day in advance.
08:56Now I'm doing a few days in advance because I'm traveling, and I have to have ones made in advance for days where I can't record. So this rollout, it's gonna take two weeks to complete. Leading up to this rollout, I was getting people DMing me, emailing me.
09:10I was seeing chatter on x and Reddit and threads and LinkedIn. I think there's an update happening. I think there's an update happening.
09:18Have you seen anything about an update? Seems like there's an update happening. And so this has been going on.
09:23This has been stirring up for days leading into this update. People suspected the update. I've seen entire blogs get deranked, ones relying very heavily on AI, and people are reporting drops in their backlinks being reported in Google Search Console.
09:40Barry Schwartz, a legend in SEO said, I see a drop of over 100,000 links for one of my sites. I'm gonna make a more thorough episode on the May update tomorrow, but I had to touch upon it.
09:53And that is everything that I got for you on episode 1,053 of The Edward Show. If you wanna learn how to do bottom of funnel SEO, how to use SEO for online reputation management, how to build links in SEO that also is effective with public relations, how to do comparisons and alternative pages, what the proper templates for bottom of funnel SEO landing pages should look like, how you can work in documentation into your bottom of funnel SEO landing pages.
10:21If you want to learn all of this and so much more, my thirteen and a half hour SEO course, compact keywords, teaches all of this. If you haven't checked it out yet, you are going to love it. I constantly update it.
10:33I spent a year making it and I constantly keep it updated. Shout out to Boris for this review. Hi, Ed.
10:39I just finished watching all the videos to get a better understanding of what I can expect from the whole course. Wow. My mind is blown.
10:46This is by far the best structured and informative course I've ever taken, free or paid. Congrats on doing such an amazing job. I can already tell this will play a major role in my startup success.
10:58Thank you. Again, that is at compactkeywords.com. This is one thousand fifty three days in a row doing this podcast.
11:05If you watch us on YouTube, thank you so much for watching. If you listened on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for listening, and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Edward Sturm opens episode 1,053 by reading the TechCrunch headline cold, then spending eleven minutes explaining why the panic is misplaced for most businesses — and exactly right for publishers and affiliates.
Named ideas worth stealing.
05:14list
Bottom-of-Funnel SEO Playbook
- Bottom-of-funnel content targeting use cases and services
- Scenario-specific pages for people who know what they want but not which brand
- Thorough documentation (comprehensive site coverage)
- Online reputation management
- Comparison and alternative pages (competitor + alternative keyword)
The five tactics Edward argues survive any AI search change because they target people at the decision stage.
Steal forAny service business or SaaS wanting to future-proof their SEO against AI Overviews
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
10:01product
“My thirteen and a half hour SEO course, Compact Keywords, teaches all of this.”
Seamlessly baked into the content — the course teaches exactly the tactics he just spent 10 minutes recommending. Student testimonial (Boris) adds social proof.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
Visual structure at a glance.
