Search with Candour
Every Monday, Jack Chambers-Ward has in-depth conversations with SEO experts from around the world. Covering topics from attribution in GA4 to networking tips for introverts and everything in between. Search With Candour is the perfect way to kickstart your working week! https://withcandour.co.uk/podcast
Episodes
Léo Poitevin, founder and CEO of Astrak Agency, joins Search with Candour to discuss why your competitors may be recommended in ChatGPT and other AI search tools while you are not.
Topics discussed:
- Why AI search engines are easier to manipulate than Google
- How to identify competitors in AI search
- How to build trust signals for AI search
- How to use listicles and guest posts to rank in AI search
- The risks of self-promotional listicles ...
Host: Jack Chambers-Ward | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlwchambers/ | He/him
In this episode of Search with Candour, I’m joined by Josh Bachynski, CEO at Be Found Everywhere. With over 20 years of experience, Josh shares insights on ethical marketing and why an evidence-based approach to SEO is important for AI search optimisation.
Topics discussed:
- Why AI Mode is the biggest change in search since 1998
- How the ranking factor...
Laura Iancu joins Search with Candour to talk about the growing crossover between SEO and UX and how we should all thinking about “search experience optimisation” (SXO) instead of traditional SEO.
Follow Laura:
Searchpedia: https://searchpedia.co.uk/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-iancu-seo/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/searchpedia.bsky.social
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@searchpedia
Chapters
00:00 Intro t...
Host: Jack Chambers-Ward (he/him)
Vince Nero, BuzzStream’s Director of Content Marketing, joins Search with Candour to discuss whether paying for digital PR is the same as buying links.
Vince shares research on link marketplaces, noting many sites have zero organic traffic and only a tiny fraction qualify as high-quality. With some top-tier paid placements averaging thousands of dollars per link, often rivalling or exceeding mo...
Host Jack Chambers Ward shares a special episode of Search With Candour highlighting two talks from SearchNorwich 18 ahead of the first SearchNorwichXL conference on 24 September 2026.
🎟️SearchNorwichXL tickets: https://searchnorwich.org/
In the first talk, Crystal Carter (Wix) discusses using AI tools for “actual intelligence” in SEO by emphasizing human experience, real examples, and opinion, noting forum visibility (e...
Jack Chambers-Ward hosts a solo episode to recap the biggest SEO news from May 2026, including Google IO, AI traffic reporting in GA4 and the May 2026 core update.
Links to news stories
Chris Green joins Search with Candour to share his study on whether answering Google’s “People Also Ask” (PAA) questions correlates with higher organic rankings.
📖 Read the study in full: https://alsoasked.com/insights/paa-ranking-correlation
Key takeaways
📈Across the top 5 positions, pages that fully answer more PAA questions tend to rank higher.
📊Commercial and transactional queries show the strongest correlati...
Jack Chambers-Ward gives a recap of his experience at HiveMCR 2026 including all of the talks, panels and events over the two-day event hosted by Charlie Whitworth.
The event included live music, stand up comedy and talks from Jono Alderson, Dawn Anderson, Alex Moss, Sophie Brannon and many more.
Sponsored by Trendos - the AI search visibility tool.
With Trendos, you can see who’s buying ads in your AI search results.
Trendos now...
Adam Gent returns to Search with Candour to discuss how Google’s indexing works and why large websites should monitor it closely.
Adam explains that statuses like “URL unknown to Google” can mean Google has deprioritised and effectively forgotten pages, and that Search Console may misreport or fail to alert when pages are actively de-indexed. He describes a “130-day rule” for indexing, where low page qu...
Jack Chambers-Ward delivers an SEO news recap covering key stories from April 2026 into early May.
He highlights Google testing AI Mode directly in the “All” tab, AI Mode’s agentic restaurant bookings, AI Mode side-by-side browsing in Chrome desktop (US), and Google’s Audio Overviews appearing on SERPs beyond Search Labs.
He also discusses Google’s official guidance on building agent-friendly websites&md...
In this eighth live collaboration between SEO Mindset and Search with Candour, the hosts discuss the “efficiency paradox” and why AI can increase overwhelm rather than make life easier.
Jack Chambers-Ward, Sarah McDowell and Tazmin Suleman debate the pressure to use AI, environmental and job concerns, hallucinations and misuse for legal/medical advice, de-skilling, declining human interaction, and the value of friction a...
Jack Chambers-Ward and Mark Williams-Cook are back in the Candour studio to discuss if People Also Ask questions improve rankings and Google’s recent crackdown on self-promotional listicles.
No demo required. No paywall. Free plan available.
Check your brand’s AI visibility now → Trendos.com
They discuss a Chris Green study using AlsoAsked API, SERP scraping, and OpenAI to score whether top-20 ranking p...
Jasmine Granton joins Search with Candour to discuss the mental health crisis in SEO and digital marketing. Jasmine’s experience as both a digital PR professional and a qualified psychotherapeutic counsellor means she’s especially qualified to discuss this topic.
They explore how always-on culture, Slack urgency, KPIs, AI-driven expectations, and perfectionism keep marketers in fight-or-flight, reducing creativity a...
Annie-Mai Hodge, founder of Girl Power Marketing and creator of the Social Tea newsletter, makes her triumphant return to Search with Candour to discuss how to do SEO for social media.
Annie-Mai explains practical keyword research for social using tools such as TikTok Creator Search Insights and AlsoAsked, and existing SEO tools, then consolidating ideas into a simple spreadsheet and testing performance via platform analytics.
They c...
Jack Chambers-Ward hosts a solo episode of Search With Candour, recapping the last 6 weeks of SEO news from the Core Updates newsletter.
Jack covers Google’s February 2026 Discover update, a fast March spam update, and the ongoing March 2026 core update.
He then highlights Bing Webmaster Tools, adding AI Performance reporting, Google’s WebMCP new UCP features.
📧 Core Updates: https://coreupdates.com/
🤝 SearchNorwichXL: ht...
Alison Moss joins Search with Candour to discuss how to prioritise technical SEO fixes and get development tickets actioned.
Together, they cover common pitfalls like lack of buy-in and unclear requirements, emphasising translating SEO needs into business outcomes and developer-friendly acceptance criteria, using ticket templates, and providing references.
Alison explains prioritising by impact versus effort, helping teams order &ldq...
Jack Chambers Ward is joined by Jessica Bettis, Candour’s Director of Strategy, to discuss what makes a strong collaboration between SEO specialists and client partnership/account management.
Jack and Jessica discuss their experience of working with clients together, and Jessica explains how client partners define success, translate work into business impact, manage resources and expectations, and nurture trust through onboard...
Jack Chambers Ward welcomes SEO consultant and Designmodo SEO Manager Bengü Sarıca Dinçer to discuss what marketers should track in GA4 as search shifts across AI summaries, social platforms, newsletters, communities, and private sharing.
Bengü argues classic metrics like rankings and organic sessions are incomplete and recommends focusing on influence signals such as assisted conversions, branded search growth, returning users, eng...
Jack Chambers Ward welcomes returning guest Sarah McDowell from The SEO Mindset Podcast to discuss AI and LLMs and how they’re responsibly integrating them into their work processes.
Jack & Sarah share AI usage stats, note the split between adopters and non-adopters, and cover concerns including environmental impact, big tech/data issues, hallucinations and fabricated reporting, and the need for clearer disclosure when AI ...
Jack Chambers Ward hosts Search with Candour with guest Dena Warren, SEO Lead at Techquity, to discuss how e-commerce brands can prepare for AI search and LLMs.
They cover how the importance of consistent product data across on-site content, feeds, and maximising structured data (product, FAQ, reviews).
Dena highlights using user-generated content, avoiding duplicate manufacturer copy, and ensuring key content is visible in HTML rath...
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