Episode
What Actually Works in SEO in 2026 - James Dooley on AI Search, Links & "Money-Hat" SEO
- Podcast
- The Edward Show
- Published
- Jul 24, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 6177
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Summary
E1116: James Dooley joins the pod to explain what's working in SEO in 2026, based on years of testing across hundreds of websites, multiple industries, and highly competitive search markets. James describes himself as a "money-hat SEO": he is less interested in labels such as white hat or black hat and more interested in testing, measuring results, managing risk, and building assets that make money over the long term. We discuss: - What James does during the first 30 days of a new SEO project - Why he often builds an exact-match domain, a partial-match domain, and a branded website for the same business - How he chooses between short-term ranking opportunities and long-term brand building - Why bottom-of-the-funnel pages remain central to his lead-generation strategy - How to tell whether a site needs more authority, better content, content pruning, or conversion work - What "discovered, not indexed" and "crawled, not indexed" can reveal about a website - Why deleting a large percentage of weak pages can sometimes increase traffic - What the Google API leak confirmed about user signals, clicks, branded searches, and NavBoost - Why site speed, concise content, image size, dwell time, and user behavior still matter - Which links still move rankings in 2026, including digital PR, guest posts, citations, press releases, and PBNs - Why James now prefers links that competitors cannot easily copy - What still works in iGaming SEO and why James is reducing his involvement in that market - How parasite SEO, expired domains, exact-match domains, and indexing tools fit into his current process - Why top-of-the-funnel content is increasingly being published on Reddit, social platforms, and third-party sites - How one strong review, testimonial, award, or case study can be repurpos…