Beyond The Search Bar

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Candid conversations with real marketers who have made a genuine, tangible impact on the domains of some globally known brands - hosted by Impressive USA co-founder Russ Macumber.

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60 recent

August 11, 202636 min

EPISODE 7: Beyond the Search Bar – JP Garbaccio on Why AI Search Will Rewrite What We Know About SEO

JP Garbaccio has worked both sides of SEO — years agency-side as a technical specialist, and now leading SEO and AEO strategy at Searchable, an AI search visibility platform. That gives him a blunt take: AI search isn't the next chapter of SEO, it's a shift from 2D to 3D, and most of the industry is still navigating it with an old map. JP and Russ talk about why client trust is fraying as attribution gets murkier ("clients aren't being stubborn, they're scared"), why product marketers and PR — not technical SEOs — are increasingly leading AI search strategy, and why brand fame may matter more than any single tactic. JP also shares what Searchable's data shows on sentiment and market penetration, and why patient, forward-thinking brands are about to pull ahead. They close comparing AI tools — including why JP reaches for Claude above everything else.

July 28, 202637 min

EPISODE 6: Beyond The Search Bar - Eli Schwartz on Why Google Still Wins the AI Search Wars

Is Google losing the AI search war - or winning it? Eli Schwartz, bestselling author of Product-Led SEO joins Russ Macumber to unpack why Google's distribution edge (Android, Chrome, YouTube, Gmail) still beats anything ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini can offer - and why AEO is really just SEO wearing a new hat. They cover how Reddit's data feed may shape what LLMs trust, why chasing individual AI platforms is a losing strategy, and whether AI is coming for marketers' jobs (mostly just the boring parts). Plus: real takeaways from Google I/O, an early look at AI-powered Gmail search, why prompt-tracking tools mislead brands, and the fast-approaching world of hyper-personalized search.

July 14, 202635 min

EPISODE 5: Beyond The Search Bar - Sara Taher on Why Most SEO Experiments Are Broken

Is most of what you know about SEO experiments actually wrong? Host Russ Macumber sits down with Sara Taher, founder of the SEO Riddler newsletter and community, to challenge some deeply held assumptions in the SEO world — including a Google patent that may signal social engineering against sites with spammy backlinks. Sara shares her honest take on schema markup, her accidental start in SEO via a failed Y Combinator-backed startup, and why she built one of the industry's most active SEO communities. Then the conversation turns to AI: Sara's hard rule is don't generate AI output unless you already know what 80% of the correct answer should look like — backed by real stories from Amazon's AI outage to Starbucks walking back over-automation. In this episode: broken SEO experiments, the truth about schema, lessons from a failed startup, building community in a cliquey industry, and the AI literacy rule every SEO needs.

June 30, 202639 min

EPISODE 4: Beyond The Search Bar - Nik Vujic on Why Good Marketing Is Good GEO

Nik Vujic, founder of Get Stuff Digital, returns to the show for a deep dive into where AI search is heading in 2026. Nik explains why he repositioned his agency around "organic growth" instead of SEO, breaks down the AI-powered agentic system his team has spent seven months building in-house, and shares a surprisingly effective playbook for managing brand reputation on Reddit. Russ and Nik also debate how the AI tool landscape will consolidate, the difference between black-hat shortcuts and sustainable AI search visibility, and why - at the end of the day - good marketing is good GEO.

June 16, 202638 min

EPISODE 1: Beyond The Search Bar - Fery Kaszoni talking AI Search + Link Building

Fery Kaszoni is back. The Search Intelligence founder unpacks how AI search is changing the game (and why it's making organic SEO more important, not less), shares the honest truth about measuring ROI in AI search, and reveals what's actually moving the needle in digital PR campaigns today.

June 16, 202638 min

EPISODE 2: Beyond The Search Bar - David Vernon & Sara Kavanagh talking SEO in an AI-First World

Is GEO or AEO really changing the game - or is it just SEO with a new coat of paint? Russ is joined by Search Theory co-founders David Vernon and Sara Kavanagh for an honest conversation about the state of search in 2026. They make the case that SEO fundamentals still rule, dig into why AI-generated content keeps failing, and explain what digital PR actually means in an LLM-driven world. Tired of the hype? This one's for you.

June 16, 202641 min

Episode 3: Beyond the Search Bar- Chad White on Owned Audiences and the Inbox as a Search Platform

Google has become the world's largest publisher — and for brands that relied on organic search, that's a crisis. In this episode, Russ sits down with Chad White, Head of Research at Zeta Global, to map out what comes next. Chad shares his five-part framework for staying visible beyond Google, makes the case for email as a genuine search platform, and explains why Google's Personal Intelligence initiative — connecting Gemini to Gmail — could be the most powerful AI personalization signal hiding in plain sight. They also get into multi-channel strategy, machine-to-machine commerce, and why empathy is the most underrated marketing tactic of 2026.

May 9, 202329 min

EPISODE 26: SEO Success Stories with Bart Van Der Meer of Leads.io

Listen as Russ Macumber talks with Bart Van Der Meer of Leads.io about his SEO journey and key learnings to date in his career.

January 24, 202436 min

EPISODE 39: SEO Success Stories - Talking SEO with Venkata Pagadala of Apartments.com

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with the guru that is Venkata Pagadala of Apartments.com about his SEO journey, programmatic SEO and more!

October 10, 202342 min

EPISODE 35: SEO Success Stories with Andrew Shotland of LocalSEOGuide.com

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Andrew Shotland of LocalSEOGuide.com about how he got his start and eventually mastered the strange world of SEO.