Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Dive deep into the ever-changing world of content and search engine marketing. Discover actionable strategies and learn ways to gain insights through data that will help you navigate the topsy-turvy world of SEO.
What's the biggest mistake companies make when submitting a Google reconsideration request?
Every rejected reconsideration request raises the recovery bar.
Kaspar Szymanski, Senior Director at SearchBrothers and former senior member of the Google Search team, brings hands-on experience in search policy and webspam enforcement. He now leads penalty recovery for businesses.
He explains why submitting a reconsideration request before diagnosing the root issue is the most common and costly mistake. Each rejection erodes trust on the permanent record, so the next request needs far more remediation to succeed.
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What's the most common warning sign that a website is at risk of a Google manual action?
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.
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Does using AI to create SEO content at scale increase your risk of a Google penalty?
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.
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What's the biggest misconception SEOs have about Google's August 2026 Spam Update?
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.
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Google Spam Update: This episode is about prevention and SEO worst case scenario readiness.
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...
The biggest organizational barrier preventing brands from succeeding in AI search
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.
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Onsite vs offsite as AI search continues to drive change
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.
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Who owns AI discovery?
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.
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Will structured product feeds become more or less important to AI search?
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.
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Will search marketers spend more time optimizing for humans or AI agents?
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.
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The source of information that will become more important to AI search
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.
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The biggest mistake brands make when trying to correct inaccurate information in AI search
Most brands fight AI inaccuracies in the wrong place. Alex Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Bluefish AI and former co-founder of PromoteIQ (acquired by Microsoft), now helps enterprise brands close AI accuracy gaps across search and discovery platforms. He outlines why first-party content and direct data feeds to models outperform third-party correction efforts, how large language models increasingly weight brand-verified information over unverified sources like forum commentary, and the diagnostic framework brands need to identify where their AI accuracy gaps actually originate.
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How Brands Build Trust & Visibility in AI Search
Roughly 20% of AI search responses contain factual inaccuracies. Alex Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Bluefish, an AI accuracy and visibility platform serving Fortune 500 brands, previously co-founded PromoteIQ, a retail media platform acquired by Microsoft. He outlines a first-party content strategy for closing model knowledge gaps, a systematic diagnostic-and-measurement framework for tracking post-optimization accuracy improvement, and a matrix-organization model for aligning search, content, commerce, and compliance teams around a single agentic marketing mandate. Sherman also details the shift toward structured brand data feeds as the next scalable pathway for influencing how models represent products and services.
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One mistake companies make when introducing AI to their organization
Blomma makes career support accessible to everyone, breaking down barriers that have traditionally limited who gets access to quality career guidance. The company is on a mission to democratize career development so that anyone can find the support they need to have impact and navigate this new era of work.
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How will AI transform entry level roles?
AI proficiency now determines entry-level career trajectory. Silvia Oviedo LĂłpez, Co-founder and CEO of Blomma who previously led global content discovery and international growth teams at Pinterest and Canva, argues organizations must abandon specialist-first hiring for zero-to-three-year professionals. She outlines a generalist-first talent model built on rapid skill acquisition, redefines the specialist-versus-generalist tradeoff for AI-native teams, and details what an AI-ready organizational culture requires at scale.
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Scaling teams, culture and product in the era of AI
Enterprise coaching at scale demands more than generic AI advice. Silvia Oviedo LĂłpez, Co-founder and CEO of Blomma and former leader of 1,500-person teams at Canva and Pinterest, shares how she's building AI-powered coaching infrastructure that personalizes context across career transitions. The conversation covers a vision-plan-execution framework for organizational transformation, portable coaching context that persists as employees change jobs, and a proactive coaching model that surfaces threaded guidance rather than waiting for reactive prompts.
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In five years will we still be talking about SEO rankings?
SEO rankings may soon become invisible metrics behind AI-driven recommendations. Jason Lax, senior SEO and AI expert at SAP with nearly two decades in search, is leading the enterprise shift from traditional SEO into AEO and GEO. He reframes success around recommendation and recognition—being cited as the answer validator rather than just the click-through destination. The discussion centers on redefining ranking as a proxy signal, treating citations as trust recommendations, and building measurement frameworks that track recognition within AI-generated answers rather than page position alone.
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One thing every enterprise SEO team should start doing this year
Only 34% of AI model citations align with brand-recommended positioning today. Jason Lax, senior SEO and AI expert at SAP, brings nearly two decades of search experience now focused on evolving enterprise strategy for AEO and GEO. He outlines a framework for prompting AI models directly to surface why they aren't recommending your brand, then converting those gaps into cross-functional tactics spanning product, pricing, and promotion. The discussion moves beyond ranking-driven SEO toward using AI model feedback as a diagnostic layer for pricing and product positioning challenges.
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One SEO metric teams rely on too much
Sessions and visits mislead teams as AI absorbs informational search intent. Jason Lax, senior SEO and AI expert at SAP with nearly two decades of search experience now leading AEO and GEO strategy, breaks down why declining traffic volume can mask rising engagement quality. He details how to layer conversion data and engagement dimensions alongside session counts to distinguish true visibility loss from a healthier, higher-intent traffic mix, and outlines the metric framework enterprise teams need as AI reshapes the top of the funnel.
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Which AI search platform are marketers paying the least attention to today?
Marketers routinely misjudge which AI platforms their actual audience uses. Jason Lax, senior SEO and AI expert at SAP with nearly two decades in search now leading AEO and GEO strategy, argues platform prioritization should never be assumption-driven. He outlines a cross-platform measurement framework that tracks performance across every AI search surface rather than defaulting to personal usage patterns, paired with audience-segmented analysis that accounts for enterprise tool restrictions and generational usage splits to reveal true visibility gaps.
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The biggest misconception marketers still have about AI search
76% of marketers still treat AI search as a separate content channel. Jason Lax, senior SEO and AI expert at SAP, argues this misconception is costing enterprise teams their competitive edge as he transitions his nearly two-decade SEO practice into AEO and GEO. He reframes the core measurement shift from ranking position to mention-worthiness, applying the same foundational SEO fundamentals rather than building parallel content strategies for AI-driven search surfaces. The discussion centers on unifying content strategy across traditional and AI search rather than fragmenting resources across separate channels.
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Why SEO Rankings No Longer Drive Purchase Decisions
Rankings no longer predict whether buyers choose your brand. Jason Lax, senior SEO and AI expert at SAP, has spent nearly two decades building the company's global organic program and now leads its shift into AEO and GEO across dozens of markets. He details SAP's technical-plus-content split strategy, using LLM citation gaps and "why weren't we recommended" prompt audits to surface product and positioning issues, and reframes measurement around model consensus and citation quality rather than session volume alone.
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The prediction about search that turned out to be right
Google's shift toward "agentic everything" will redefine how search assistants act on users' behalf. Tasia Custode, founder and CEO of Brio Media, breaks down her post-Google I/O predictions on where agentic search is headed next. She outlines how agentic search is already surfacing in Gemini, Chrome, and core Search functionality, and explains the evolution from static AI Overviews to assistants that complete tasks autonomously across devices. The conversation covers the shift from software-based agentic features to product-level integration across smart devices, speakers, and phones as the next frontier for search strategy.
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The most exiting emerging AI feature
AI-generated video content is evolving beyond short, generic clips. Tasia Custode of Brio Media examines the trajectory of multimodal AI video generation as tools like Google Flow mature. The discussion centers on the shift from disjointed 8-second AI clips toward storyboarded, structured scenes with narrative continuity. Custode identifies character consistency and scene continuity as the key technical thresholds separating experimental AI video output from production-ready content.
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Creator advice that still resonates today
Creator consistency separates thriving channels from abandoned ones. Tasia Custode, founder and CEO of Brio Media, breaks down why sustainable content strategy starts with genuine passion rather than prescribed niches. She unpacks the discipline required to sustain publishing consistency over time and explains why authentic, interest-driven topic selection outperforms formulaic channel planning.
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This was the best discontinued Google product
The transcript provided only contains the opening icebreaker exchange (Jordan asking about a discontinued Google product, Tasia answering "Google Reader") — it cuts off before any actual SEO discussion begins. There's no content here about challenges, strategies, frameworks, or results tied to Tasia's work at Brio Media.
Since the instructions explicitly say not to assume what the conversation was about, I can't responsibly fabricate the "data-driven challenge," "proven results," or "frameworks/strategies discussed" the task requires — none of that appears in the excerpt.
Could you share the rest of the tran...
One Google Workspace feature everyone underuses
Content teams lose brand voice consistency across collaborative drafts. Tasia Custode, founder and CEO of Brio Media, breaks down an underused capability inside Google Workspace for enterprise content teams. She details Gemini's Refine feature in Google Docs, showing how to highlight a collaborator's edit and match it to brand voice or personal style with one click. She also outlines using the same feature to rewrite underperforming copy on demand, streamlining editorial consistency across team-authored content.
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How Creators Are Adapting to Google's Search Changes
YouTube view-to-subscriber ratios are declining as AI search expands into video. Tasia Custode, Founder and CEO of Brio Media, has published content weekly since 2020, building sustained audience growth by prioritizing helpfulness over virality. The conversation examines agentic search's shift from information retrieval to task completion, the monetization and attribution risks AI-generated summaries pose to creator watch time and citation value, and a performance framework built on click-through rate, retention data, and brand partnership signals rather than vanity metrics.
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What AEO strategies are not working today?
Most AEO strategies fail without strong SEO fundamentals in place. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter and former early marketing hire at Uber Eats, has built an AI search agency helping brands establish visibility across Google and AI-generated answers. The conversation covers positioning exercises as the foundation for AI search strategy, message consistency frameworks drawn from product marketing discipline, and execution models for maintaining brand coherence across traditional and AI-driven search surfaces.
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What's one marketing fundamental that AI will never replace?
Programmatic AI content strategies are already failing marketers. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter and former first marketing hire at Uber Eats, built one of the first agencies dedicated to AI search visibility after watching volume-based, programmatic page tactics spike and then crash. She breaks down why classic SEO shortcuts—keyword stuffing and arbitrary content length—collapse under AI search evaluation, and why answer engine optimization depends on stronger fundamental content quality rather than production volume.
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The advantage of a traditional product marketing background?
Broad keyword targeting is quietly undermining AI search visibility. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter and former first marketing hire at Uber Eats, has built an AEO agency helping brands get discovered across Google and AI answer engines after advising companies like Multisensor AI, FORM Kitchens, and Kyte as a fractional CMO. She breaks down why keyword specificity now outperforms broad-match traffic grabs, how legacy SEO habits actively hurt AI search performance, and what product marketing rigor brings to building durable AI visibility strategy.
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One SEO habit marketers should stop doing
AI search visibility now hinges on fundamentals most brands abandoned years ago. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter and former first marketing hire at Uber Eats, built one of the first agencies dedicated to AI search visibility after scaling global growth operations and serving as fractional CMO for companies including Multisensor AI and Kyte. She unpacks why AEO performance is built on foundational SEO discipline rather than a separate playbook, and why treating strategy as an AI-replaceable function misreads what actually drives purchase intent. The conversation centers on using AI to scale execution while keeping human synthesis of...
What's the biggest misconception about AEO today?
Most SEOs assume AI visibility requires an omnichannel content spread. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter, scaled Uber Eats as one of its first marketing hires and now runs an AI search agency advising fractional CMO clients including Multisensor AI and FORM Kitchens. She outlines how to run an AI visibility audit to benchmark brand and competitor citations across generative engines, exposing which source types actually drive AI answer inclusion. The discussion reframes AEO as an extension of proven SEO fundamentals rather than a separate, channel-hungry discipline.
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Separating AEO Expertise From Search Marketing Hype
Only one-third of Google searches now click through to the open web. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter and former product marketing lead at Uber Eats, argues that AEO success depends on marketing fundamentals, not channel-hacking. She and Tyson break down why brand differentiation and positioning outperform multi-channel content sprawl, how AI visibility metrics like citation frequency and sentiment are replacing traditional traffic-based attribution, and why keyword specificity now beats broad-volume targeting in an AI-driven search landscape.
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Advice for your ecommerce team
AI platforms increasingly reward customer-focused product content over technical specifications. Lucas Tieleman, co-founder and CEO of Optiversal and former Chief Product Officer at Bazaarvoice, has helped enterprise retailers convert static product catalogs into machine-readable content that performs across traditional search and AI-driven discovery. The conversation covers why answer engine optimization depends on strong underlying SEO fundamentals, how AI is reshaping the way brands approach search visibility, and why translating product specifications into customer benefits matters more than increasing content volume.
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An SEO tactic marketers should stop doing
Volume-based keyword content is quietly undermining search performance. Lucas Tieleman, CEO and co-founder of Optiversal, has helped major enterprise retailers convert static product catalogs into machine-readable content that performs across both search and AI platforms, building on experience as former Chief Product Officer at Bazaarvoice. The conversation breaks down why "sloptimization"—churning out keyword-driven posts without added value—undermines both rankings and revenue, why answer engine optimization depends on strong underlying SEO fundamentals rather than replacing them, and how transforming product data into structured, machine-readable assets drives visibility across traditional and AI-driven search.
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The biggest misconception about AI search today
Two identical searches now return different results across AI platforms, upending ranking logic.
Lucas Tieleman, co-founder and CEO of Optiversal and former Chief Product Officer at Bazaarvoice, helps enterprise retailers convert static product catalogs into machine-readable content optimized for AI-driven discovery. He argues that answer engine optimization depends on strong SEO fundamentals rather than a separate discipline, and that success now hinges on content relevance to individual searchers rather than fixed position rankings. Tieleman outlines how brands can use performance data to validate whether their content actually serves shopper intent, shifting content strategy from volume-based production to...
Why AEO Starts With Better SEO Fundamentals
AI Overviews now appear in 40% of Google searches, up from 6% in six months. Lucas Tieleman, co-founder of Optiversal, helps enterprise retailers turn static product catalogs into machine-readable content that performs across Google, ChatGPT, and Google Merchant Center. He breaks down why structured data and clean entity relationships matter more now than five years ago, how to optimize product feeds for AI search's "product graph," and why shifting from "test and learn" to "learn and test" prevents scaling content without scaling value.
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One thing AI still can't do well
AI agents still can't replicate implicit, high-frequency human communication around company strategy. Thenuka Karunaratne, founder of sunbeam, the autonomous SEO agent, and daydream, the AI-native SEO agency that identifies search patterns and creates content at scale, breaks down where automation hits its limits. He details how teams can feed agents with call recordings, CRM data, and help desk interactions to approximate customer empathy and product context, while explaining why macro strategy formation still depends on unstructured, high-touch conversations between humans. The discussion frames a practical boundary for enterprise teams building autonomous SEO workflows: where to automate content production and...
One SEO skill everyone should be learning today
AI can't fully replace product intuition in SEO. Thenuka Karunaratne, founder of sunbeam and daydream, built an autonomous SEO agent and an AI-native agency to scale content without losing that intuition. He argues product sense is the top skill for modern SEOs: understanding what a product does at a deep level, how customers experience it, and where they struggle. That product-level insight, not just technical execution, is what determines what to communicate to search audiences in an AI-driven landscape.
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