Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast

Latest Episodes:

What's the most common warning sign that a website is at risk of a Google manual action? Oct 15, 2026

Show notes

Google Search Console gives no clear-cut warning of an impending manual action. Kaspar Szymanski, Senior Director at SearchBrothers and former senior member of Google's Search team with hands-on webspam enforcement experience, now helps businesses recover from Google penalties. He explains why increased crawler activity in specific site sections is the only potential warning sign, and why it produces many false positives. He also covers how to separate real risk from benign causes such as new external references, internal linking changes, and trending query demand.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Does using AI to create SEO content at scale increase your risk of a Google penalty? Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

AI-generated content at scale can trigger Google penalties.

Kaspar Szymanski, Senior Director at SearchBrothers.com and former senior member of Google's Search team with hands-on webspam enforcement experience, helps businesses recover from Google penalties. He explains why human oversight, a defined editorial process, and quality assurance determine whether AI-assisted content creates penalty risk. He also covers building content for users rather than for Googlebot as the standard for scaled production.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's the biggest misconception SEOs have about Google's August 2026 Spam Update? Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

Google's August 2026 Spam Update is being misread as an AI penalty. Kaspar Szymanski, Senior Director at SearchBrothers.com and a former senior member of the Google Search team, brings hands-on experience in search policy and webspam enforcement. He explains why sites using AI are being affected without production method being the trigger: Google flags low-quality sites based on the quality of their output. The discussion separates how content is produced from how it is evaluated.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Google Spam Update: This episode is about prevention and SEO worst case scenario readiness. Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Spam updates and manual actions are hitting sites simultaneously. Kaspar Szymanski, Senior Director at SearchBrothers and former senior member of Google's Search team, has led penalty recoveries for businesses where visibility dropped abruptly and has hands-on experience in webspam enforcement. He outlines a post-update investigation sequence: Search Console manual action check, long-term server log retention, multi-crawler audits, and a holistic review of technical, content, and off-page signals. He also covers the case against sitting out a penalty, the risk of premature reconsideration requests, and penalty-proofing through human QA oversight on AI content, Bing and brand diversification, and annual policy compliance audits.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The biggest organizational barrier preventing brands from succeeding in AI search Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Organizational silos remain the top barrier to AI search success. Siiri Lee, Senior Director of Global Direct-to-Consumer at MANSCAPED, brings over two decades of experience scaling DTC and omnichannel ecommerce operations to the conversation. The discussion covers reframing AI-driven search as a cross-functional organizational mandate rather than a single-department initiative, aligning GEO and AEO workstreams across traditional SEO team boundaries, and restructuring internal processes to match the pace at which search behavior is evolving.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Onsite vs offsite as AI search continues to drive change Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Off-site signals now outweigh on-site control in AI search. Siiri Lee, Senior Director of Global Direct-to-Consumer at MANSCAPED, brings two decades of experience scaling DTC and omnichannel ecommerce through conversion optimization, personalization, retention, and loyalty programs. She breaks down why on-site levers remain the most controllable investment even as off-site signals gain weight, and outlines a framework for aligning previously siloed teams around one holistic narrative and shared discovery objectives. The conversation frames cross-functional alignment, not channel-specific tactics, as the foundation for scaling AI search performance.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Who owns AI discovery? Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

AI is changing the way people discover information online—and SEO is no longer the responsibility of just one team. This episode explores the future of search, including AEO and GEO, and how businesses can adapt to AI-driven discovery.

The conversation dives into decentralized SEO ownership, cross-functional collaboration, agency partnerships, and the importance of building strong relationships across marketing, PR, engineering, content, and other teams. Discover practical insights on how organizations can move faster, make smarter decisions, and stay ahead as the search landscape continues to evolve.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Will structured product feeds become more or less important to AI search? Oct 03, 2026

Show notes

Structured data specialization will separate winners from also-rans in AI search. Alex Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Bluefish AI, brings that perspective from building PromoteIQ, the retail media platform Microsoft acquired, and now serving Fortune 500 brands exclusively on AI discovery accuracy. He argues AEO and agentic marketing are still in their earliest innings, with today's do-everything platforms giving way to segment-specific players—data, analytics, optimization, measurement, and paid media specialists forming a new "lumascape." Sherman predicts a wave of new entrants within 12 months as the category matures past its generalist phase into genuine specialization.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Will search marketers spend more time optimizing for humans or AI agents? Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

The SEO versus AEO debate misses the point entirely. Alex Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Bluefish AI, previously built and sold PromoteIQ to Microsoft, giving him rare perspective on how marketing channels transform at scale. He argues that treating search and agent optimization as competing disciplines is a losing strategy, that historical marketing channel shifts consistently open doors for new talent and new market entrants, and that brands need to prepare now for customer journeys increasingly mediated by AI agents rather than waiting for the split between human and agentic traffic to fully materialize.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The source of information that will become more important to AI search Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

Brand data will define AI search visibility next year. Alex Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Bluefish AI, previously built and sold PromoteIQ to Microsoft before turning to AI-driven discovery infrastructure. He breaks down what structured, syndicated brand data built specifically for large language models looks like in practice, and why the agentic customer journey demands a new data toolkit heading into the holiday season. The discussion centers on why brand data is poised to become a more powerful lever for AI visibility than it was through 2025.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected