AI Tools Are Consensus Engines - Josh Shankowsky

September 30, 2026 • 00:53:03
AI Tools Are Consensus Engines - Josh Shankowsky
The Unscripted SEO Interview Podcast
AI Tools Are Consensus Engines - Josh Shankowsky

Sep 30 2026 | 00:53:03

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Show Notes

"These are consensus engines. They're looking at what most people are saying." Josh Shankowsky of Snap SEO, an Edmonton SEO company, joins Jeremy Rivera on Unscripted SEO to explain why generic AI content loses, and what he does instead. Read the full episode recap.

Josh borrowed a method from Howard Bloom, the publicist behind Prince and AC/DC, and turned it into a "cultural onboarding" for every client: the founder's story, the founding principles, the challenges and the communities growing around the business. That is his answer to the information gain problem and to the rabbit hole every LLM falls down.

He also shares how he builds local links by sponsoring nonprofits (one sponsorship turned into a Google Ads client), the Search Console "I am" filter that surfaces customers writing their life story into a query, and how he uses Bing results to find the directories and best-of lists ChatGPT cites. Jeremy adds how he triangulates Search Console, GA4, Microsoft Clarity and now Bing Webmaster Tools to separate people from bots.

Josh also answers the last guest's question on Google Discover from his northern lights forecast site, Aurora Admin: article start and end date schema, news-style titles, and putting the payoff mid-article so people keep reading.

More from the network: how Search Console compares to Clarity on 4 sites - Jeremy Rivera SEO - SEO Arcade.

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