919: Charles Floate joins the show to reveal what link building looks like inside restricted and gray market verticals like iGaming, crypto, and prediction markets.

This is not a surface-level SEO conversation. It's a practical breakdown of how rankings are achieved, defended, and lost in some of the most competitive and hostile SERPs on the internet.

The discussion covers why ranking is often the easy part - and why maintaining rank has become the real challenge as negative SEO, DMCA abuse, and large-scale link manipulation continue to increase.

Topics covered include:
- How link building works in restricted verticals where traditional outreach fails
- Reverse engineering SERPs to understand what Google is rewarding right now
- Why many competitors rank using identical techniques - and why Google allows it
- Subdomain canonical strategies and aged domain leverage
- Scaling link building without massive outreach teams using AI systems
- The role of human validation and where automation becomes dangerous
- Why most large budgets in iGaming are wasted on low-value links
- How to identify real topical authority using link gap analysis
- Tiered link building and when it actually makes sense
- The difference between ranking and maintaining rankings in gray markets
- DMCA takedowns as a negative SEO weapon - and how widespread they've become
- Why some competitors disappear from Google overnight
- The resurgence of PBNs and why they're working again
- Link insertions, niche edits, and why Google hasn't stopped them
- Beginner-friendly link building tactics that still work
- Why statistics pages attract links passively from both humans and AI systems
- Common on-page and technical SEO mistakes in iGaming sites
- Intent mapping and why page type matters more than keywords
- How AI search results change the need for consensus across sources
- Link versioning and how authoritative pages replace existing sources
- The limits of white hat SEO in international and gray markets
- Cloaking tactics that still appear in the wild - and which ones are mostly gone

This episode is intended for experienced SEOs, agency owners, and operators working in highly competitive or restricted niches. If you work in regulated, gray, or high-risk verticals, this conversation reflects the realities you're already dealing with.

If you found this episode useful, consider subscribing for daily discussions on SEO, marketing systems, and real-world ranking strategies.

New episodes are published every day.

⭐️ 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://www.facebook.com/TheCharlesFloate/
⭐️ Charles Floate's PressWhizz - https://presswhizz.com/

💎 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 Introduction to SEO Attacks and Revenue Impact
00:32 Welcome and Introduction to Charles Floate
01:01 Reverse Engineering and Link Building in Competitive Niches
02:22 Techniques for Ranking in Gray Market Niches
06:15 Scaling Link Building with AI
10:43 Common Mistakes in Link Building and SEO
16:54 Advanced Techniques and Best Practices
23:23 Intent Mapping in SEO
25:14 Challenges in iGaming SEO
25:30 DMCA Takedowns and Negative SEO
28:58 AI and Negative SEO
32:13 Black Hat Link Building Tactics
41:53 Link Building in Restricted Verticals
43:54 Conclusion and Future Episodes

The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/

#blackhatseo #linkbuilding #searchengineoptimization #competitiveseo

E918: David Quaid returns to the show to break down one of the most misunderstood topics in SEO: XML sitemaps.

Every day, people are told that if their pages are "crawled but not indexed," the fix is simple - submit a sitemap. This episode explains why that advice is usually wrong, what XML sitemaps actually do, and why authority is the real factor behind indexing and rankings.

This conversation reframes SEO as a system, not a checklist. Instead of treating Google like it follows instructions, we look at how crawling, indexing, PageRank decay, and authority actually work in practice.

Topics covered:
- What XML sitemaps do and what they don't do
- Why "crawled but not indexed" is almost never a sitemap issue
- How Google crawlers really work (and why they aren't "spiders")
- The difference between crawling, indexing, and ranking
- Why pages without authority don't get indexed
- How internal links actually transfer authority
- PageRank decay and why most links don't matter
- Why manual URL submission is usually the wrong approach
- Client-side rendering, JavaScript, and how Googlebot handles them
- Why content quality is not the reason most pages aren't indexed
- How large sites (Amazon, eBay, news sites) still have low index rates
- Why backlinks only matter if the linking page has traffic
- Common mistakes SEOs make with sitemaps, crawl optimization, and indexing tools
- When HTML sitemaps make more sense than XML sitemaps
- How authority shapes indexing for programmatic SEO and large sites

Who this episode is for:
- SEOs struggling with pages that won't get indexed
- Founders and developers working on small or mid-sized sites
- Anyone relying on XML sitemaps as an indexing strategy
- People who want to understand how Google actually evaluates pages

Key takeaway:

If Google can crawl your page but won't index it, the problem is not technical. It's authority. XML sitemaps don't create authority, don't force indexing, and don't fix underlying SEO issues.

SEO works as a system. If you try to treat it like a checklist, it will break.

⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid
⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/
⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/

💎 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 Introduction to Sitemaps and SEO
00:35 Debunking Common Sitemap Myths
01:23 Understanding Google Crawlers
03:02 Client-Side vs Server-Side Rendering
03:26 Authority and Relevance in SEO
03:36 Challenges with JavaScript and SEO
05:01 The Role of Authority in Indexing
10:50 Practical Tips for Improving Indexing
12:56 The Importance of Context in Links
15:14 Managing Sitemaps for Small Sites
16:04 Handling Noindex Pages
16:53 Crawling and Indexing Challenges
17:24 Manual Submit Requests and Google Bots
19:55 The Role of Sitemaps
21:23 Backlinks and Authority
23:40 Programmatic SEO Insights
23:52 Common Mistakes in Programmatic SEO
24:04 SEO for Large Websites
25:44 SEO Strategies for New Sites
30:42 SEO Fun and Future Topics
31:04 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser

The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/

#searchengineoptimization #xmlsitemap #googlesearchconsole #webdevelopment