Lily Ray on AI Slop, GEO, and What Actually Works

Lily Ray on AI Slop, GEO, and What Actually Works

Ross Hudgens welcomes Lily Ray, VP of SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive — this time in person — for a wide-ranging conversation on what's actually working (and what's getting patched) in AI search right now. They dig into the rise and likely fall of self-promotional listicles and comparison pages, the new wave of GEO manipulation tactics already being flagged as spam by Google and Microsoft, and how to build visibility that's genuinely algorithm-proof. Lily also shares how her team is using AI day-to-day, what the technical GEO checklist looks like in 2026, and why she's still betting on Google winning the AI search race long-term. Show Notes: 00:00:11 – Lily's new consulting practice at Algorithmic 00:02:11 – The rise and fall of self-promotional listicles 00:08:11 – Comparison pages and alternative posts 00:12:38 – Authentic authority vs. paid influence 00:15:42 – GEO exploits Google & Microsoft flag as spam 00:27:23 – Using AI day-to-day 00:30:46 – The GEO technical checklist 00:36:27 – Predicting the Next 12 Months     Show Links: Find Lily at Amsive: https://www.amsive.com/insights/author/lily-ray/ Follow Lily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-ray-44755615/ Follow Lily on X: https://x.com/lilyraynyc Lily’s Substack: https://lilyraynyc.substack.com/ Subscribe for weekly episodes: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Follow Ross on X: https://twitter.com/rosshudgens Follow Siege Media on X: https://twitter.com/siegemedia   Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jT3NjUkdLeA Follow Siege on Twitter: http://twitter.com/siegemedia Follow Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosshudgens Directed by Cara Brown: https://twitter.com/cararbrown Email Ross: ross@siegemedia.com #seo | #contentmarketing

Is Content Syndication Worth It? w/ Stacker's Noah Greenberg

Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker, joins Ross to break down how his platform distributes brand content as earned media across thousands of news publishers and why it's becoming a core part of modern SEO,  digital PR, and GEO strategy.   They dig into the nuances of doing syndication the right way, from canonical tags and editorial standards to why Stacker's network of 3,000+ publishers makes it a fundamentally different play than old-school link building. Noah also explains how the rise of GEO is reshaping the value of syndication, as brands discover that republishing content across hundreds of news outlets dramatically increases the surface area for LLM citations.   Ross and Noah close out with a practical breakdown of what content actually performs on the newswire: proprietary data stories only your brand can tell, public data localized by geography, and well-timed "news you can use" tied to seasonal events. If you're a brand, agency, or SEO thinking about content distribution, this one is worth your full attention.   Show Notes: 0:00  What Is Stacker? Distribution, Earned Media & How It Works 01:20  How Stacker Solved the Chicken-and-Egg Problem with Publishers 08:23  Google's Syndication Warning & Why Stacker Plays It White Hat 13:11  The Real SEO & GEO Value of Content Syndication 17:04  Who Is Stacker Actually a Good Fit For? (B2B vs. B2C) 22:39  Local Content, Localization at Scale & Why It Outperforms 27:17  How Stacker Scales Across 3,000 Publishers Without Oversaturating 35:35 3 Types of Content That Consistently Win on the Newswire   Show Links: Follow Noah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahg/   Stacker: https://stacker.com/   Follow Ross on X: https://x.com/RossHudgens: Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jT3NjUkdLeA Follow Siege on Twitter: http://twitter.com/siegemedia Follow Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosshudgens Directed by Cara Brown: https://twitter.com/cararbrown Email Ross: ross@siegemedia.com #seo | #contentmarketing

Building a Media-First Content Marketing Strategy w/ Devin Bramhall

In this episode of Content and Conversation, Ross Hudgens sits down with Devin Bramhall to unpack what’s broken in modern B2B marketing and what actually works when metrics get messy and attribution falls apart. They talk through Devin’s experience writing B2B Content Marketing Strategy, why “media-first” is now table stakes, and how community is often misunderstood, mis-scoped, or forced into the wrong formats. Devin shares real examples from her work at Help Scout and beyond, showing how strong communities are built by paying attention to people, not playbooks. Show Notes: 00:00 – Intro/Marketing can’t be measured with numbers alone   05:30 – Writing a book when you already know the answer   10:20 – Media-first content marketing explained   15:00 – What community actually means (and what it doesn’t)   20:30 – Real-world community examples that worked   28:30 – Outcomes vs activities in marketing reporting   35:00 – Telling a story your CEO will understand   44:30 – When community is the wrong strategy   Show Links: * B2B Content Marketing Strategy Book [https://www.amazon.com/B2B-Content-Marketing-Strategy-Media-First/dp/1398622516] by Devin Bramhall * Follow Ross on X: https://x.com/RossHudgens [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbHlUWFQyVnpldFB3YVFTUlBrZXhCQ1JELXJmUXxBQ3Jtc0tsbEhUaUp6VXJBOEtWb2tJeVRoTUtrU0FLdm5YUHhPSmZjOUduNndKNFVrcDFyd0Y3bklqSkt3TkIwMElzRFBjUk1PMHVsaVg2Qi1lX0k5OTJ4UGxpSHJzWE9SMUdobTJTVW9ZcVh0Ui0wbW9tZWFsVQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2FRossHudgens&v=4KyYqe1s_XY] Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jT3NjUkdLeA Follow Siege on Twitter: http://twitter.com/siegemedia Follow Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosshudgens Directed by Cara Brown: https://twitter.com/cararbrown Email Ross: ross@siegemedia.com #seo | #contentmarketing

How GEO Actually Works w/ Bernard Huang

Bernard Huang returns to break down GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and the big question: is GEO actually different from SEO, or just SEO evolving?   We talk about how AI Mode/AI Overviews are changing search behavior, why top-funnel traffic is getting squeezed, and what “good SEO is good GEO” really means in practice.   Show Notes: 00:00 – Welcome back & why GEO is everywhere 03:05 – Is GEO actually different from SEO? 07:10 – How AI agents think vs keyword-based SEO 12:45 – The traffic apocalypse & AI Mode becoming default 18:00 – Mentions vs backlinks in an LLM world 24:30 – What people are getting wrong about GEO 30:45 – Measuring success: impressions, citations & brand search 42:55 – The “long, long tail” and the future of content strategy   Show Links: Follow Bernard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardjhuang/   Visit Clearscope: https://www.clearscope.io/   Follow Ross on X: https://x.com/RossHudgens     Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jT3NjUkdLeA Follow Siege on Twitter: http://twitter.com/siegemedia Follow Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosshudgens Directed by Cara Brown: https://twitter.com/cararbrown Email Ross: ross@siegemedia.com #seo | #contentmarketing

Tough Questions CEOs are Asking About AI SEO (and How To Answer Them) w/ Gaetano DiNardi

Ross welcomes Gaetano DiNardi, growth advisor and B2B SaaS strategist, to unpack the brutal questions CEOs are suddenly firing at their SEO teams in the AI era: traffic is flat or down, attribution is messy, LLM dashboards look scary, and everyone wants to know if SEO is still “working.”   They dig into why traffic is no longer the primary health metric, how AI Overviews and LLMs are breaking the old “rank → CTR → traffic → leads → revenue” equation, and why CMOs should obsess less over sessions and more over demo requests, pipeline, deal size, and overall organic channel performance.   Gaetano shares how he’s reframing SEO for mid-market B2B SaaS: shifting from decaying top-of-funnel content to bottom-of-funnel “money pages,” optimizing for LLM citations and “money prompts,” and using concepts like “crash-the-party” comparison pages to win high-intent demand across both Google and AI platforms.   They also break down why LLM prompt tracking is the new rank tracking (with all the same pitfalls), how AI platform traffic actually converts compared to Google, what “dark funnel SEO” looks like in practice, and why Gaetano thinks classic TOFU SEO might effectively go to zero while brand, data studies, and opinionated thought leadership pick up the slack.   Show Notes 0:08 – Gaetano returns & why last year’s SEO playbook no longer works 1:17 – CEOs’ top question: “Traffic is down… is SEO still working?” 2:17 – Why B2B SaaS is feeling the decline hardest 3:16 – The old rank → CTR → traffic → revenue model is broken 5:46 – Top-of-funnel content is collapsing (and why TOFU is “dead-ish”) 6:13 – The shift to bottom-funnel: BOFU keywords, low volume, high intent 7:11 – Flat traffic + rising revenue: the new SEO success story 8:01 – What LLMs cite: comparisons, “best X” lists, crash-the-party pages 8:38 – Crash-the-party SEO explained in 15 seconds 13:21 – LLM prompt dashboards are misleading your executives 15:53 – Branded vs. non-branded LLM prompts: why you MUST separate them 18:06 – Build a tight list of “money prompts,” not 500 random ones 20:06 – Why AI platforms show higher conversion rates than Google 22:10 – Dark-funnel behavior: LLM → Google → homepage → convert 24:08 – Google leads have FAR larger deal sizes than AI leads 27:35 – SEO attribution is officially “cooked” in the AI era 29:27 – Traffic flat, pipeline up 3×: examples from real clients 31:25 – Use top-10 stability to prove AI Overviews stole your clicks 34:47 – Search is becoming BOFU-first — what that means 35:34 – LLM citations as the new leading indicator for SEO 39:00 – Exploding topics = more LLM citations due to low consensus 41:22 – Engagement validates information gain (why POV content wins) 47:20 – What happens to TOFU SEO? (Short answer: it shrinks massively) 48:49 – Why TOFU may survive only for authority, clustering, and links     Gaetano on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/officialg/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/officialg/]   Tough Questions CEOs Are Asking About AI SEO: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T_IQXUCXBQtFcLekVFwqv23y8ViuRFJKBIRtn4wcImQ/edit?usp=sharing   Does traffic from AI platforms convert “better” than Google search traffic?: https://marketingadvice.substack.com/p/869517ce-4629-429f-addd-518d9342cdff   CMOs are frantically asking “what’s our Reddit strategy?: https://marketingadvice.substack.com/p/cmos-are-frantically-asking-whats   LLM prompt tracking is the new rank tracking: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/officialg_llm-prompt-monitoring-is-quickly-becoming-activity-737 7069814458097664-KLyi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAj OemoBsmGgXOOcFpcwGVG1B7IlDCvf8io Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/content-and-conversation-seo-tips-from-siege-media/id1289467174 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kiaFGXO5UcT2qXVRuXjsM Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jT3NjUkdLeA Follow Siege on Twitter: http://twitter.com/siegemedia Follow Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosshudgens Directed by Cara Brown: https://twitter.com/cararbrown Email Ross: ross@siegemedia.com #seo | #contentmarketing