TL;DR: The best SEO podcasts in 2026 are the ones that have adapted to AI search, not just Google rankings. Below are 14 active, independently-run shows covering everything from Google algorithm updates to Answer Engine Optimization, organized by what they're actually best for. No dead shows, no shows padding their own in-house podcast to the top of the list.
This article covers:
- 14 active SEO and AI search podcasts, verified as still publishing in 2026
- Which shows actually cover AEO, GEO, and AI search versus classic SEO only
- What each show is best for, so you don't have to subscribe to all of them
- A few well-known shows we left off, and why
Search changed more in the last two years than in the decade before it. Buyers used to type a keyword into Google. Now a growing number of them ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity a question and act on whatever gets recommended back.
Most "best SEO podcasts" lists haven't caught up. They're either recycled from 2022, padded with shows that stopped publishing years ago, or quietly ranking the list author's own podcast at #1.
This one doesn't do that. Fourteen shows, all still active, picked for one reason: they teach you something you can use, whether that's a Google core update, a technical SEO fix, or how AI engines decide who to cite. We checked every link below before publishing this.
How We Picked These
Three filters. First, the show has to still be publishing — a dead podcast is a blog post you can't skim. Second, it has to come from an independent host or practitioner, not a vendor's in-house marketing podcast dressed up as objective research. Third, it has to teach something real, whether that's a Google update breakdown, a technical fix, or a look at how AI search actually works.
A few well-known shows didn't make the cut because they've gone quiet. More on those at the end.
Best SEO Podcasts for Google Updates and Search News
1. Search Off the Record
This is Google's own podcast, hosted by the Search Relations team — John Mueller, Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes, and Lizzi Sassman, with Danny Sullivan dropping in occasionally. If you want to hear how Google's search engineers talk about their own systems, this is as close as you'll get. Recent episodes have covered how crawling actually works and what AI is doing to search.
Worth knowing: it's Google talking about Google, so you're getting the company's framing, not an independent take. Cross-check it against the practitioner shows below.
Best for: Hearing how Google's own team thinks, straight from the source.
Listen to Search Off the Record →
2. Search News You Can Use
Dr. Marie Haynes has been one of the most trusted voices on Google algorithm updates for years. Her show breaks down what's moving in search and what to actually do about it, and in the last year she's gone deep on AI and agentic search — Google's Search Console AI reporting, the shift toward preferred sources, and what it means for site owners.
Best for: Making sense of a core update without spiraling.
Listen to Search News You Can Use →
3. Search Engine Roundtable
Barry Schwartz has been the most consistent daily news source in search for over two decades. Episodes run short — around ten minutes — and cover breaking algorithm changes and AI search developments as they happen, not weeks later.
Best for: A daily intelligence feed rather than a deep strategic dive.
Visit Search Engine Roundtable →
4. The Search Engine Journal Show
Search Engine Journal is one of the few SEO publications worth reading regularly, and the podcast is the audio companion — interviews with practitioners built around whatever's happening in search that week. Loren Baker and the SEJ team know how to ask a useful follow-up question instead of letting a guest coast on talking points.
Best for: News plus practitioner interviews without the fluff.
Visit The Search Engine Journal Show →
Best Podcasts for AI Search, AEO, and GEO
These are the shows that have genuinely reframed themselves around AI search — not just an occasional ChatGPT episode bolted onto a classic SEO format.
5. Crawling Mondays
Aleyda Solis is one of the sharpest technical SEOs working today, and her show has become one of the most technically rigorous sources on how AI systems crawl, evaluate, and index content. It's video-first and lives on YouTube, though you can stream the audio anywhere. New episodes land roughly monthly rather than weekly, so it's not a steady drip, but each one is dense with detail worth the wait.
Best for: The technical mechanics of AI search readiness — crawling, indexing, and content structure.
6. Search with Candour
Jack Chambers-Ward puts this out weekly from UK agency Candour, and he's explicitly reframed the show around AI search as its own discipline rather than treating it as a footnote to classic SEO. He's also a genuinely good interviewer — he pushes guests past the rehearsed answer.
Best for: A weekly, practitioner-focused AI search update that doesn't recycle the same five tips.
Listen to Search with Candour →
7. SERP's Up
Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter's show from Wix combines genuine analytical curiosity with the scale advantage of observing patterns across millions of Wix-hosted sites. It increasingly covers how AI search is reshaping ranking dynamics, backed by real data rather than speculation.
Best for: Data-driven analysis of how AI is changing SERP behavior at scale.
Best Podcasts for Marketing Strategy and Business
8. The Ahrefs Podcast
Tim Soulo, Ahrefs' CMO, hosts this, and the trick is that it's barely an SEO show — it's a marketing show. He talks with founders and growth leaders about positioning, hiring, and branding: the business decisions that determine whether SEO work actually matters. If you're tired of tactics and want to zoom out, start here.
Best for: SEOs who want to think like marketers instead of technicians.
Listen to The Ahrefs Podcast →
9. The Long Game
Omniscient Digital's co-founders run this one, and it leans toward how content and SEO compound over years rather than quick wins. It's well past 200 episodes and comes out weekly, with conversations that favor strategy and the reasoning behind why some content actually wins.
Best for: Content strategists and B2B marketers who want depth over hacks.
10. Voices of Search
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Benjamin Shapiro runs a near-daily interview show covering SEO and content marketing, with a growing focus on how AI is reshaping search careers and strategy. The format is short and frequent rather than long and occasional, which makes it easy to keep up with.
Best for: Frequent, bite-sized interviews with a wide range of practitioners.
Best Podcasts for Practical, No-Fluff SEO
11. The SEO Show
Michael Costin and Arthur Fabik are two Australian SEOs with about a decade each in the field, and their episodes run around 20-25 minutes — roughly one commute. The entire point of the show is separating tactics that actually work from advice that just sounds good, aimed at business owners and DIY SEOs rather than agency practitioners. Recent episodes have covered showing up in AI answers for local service businesses alongside the usual technical SEO topics.
Best for: Short, practical listens when you're pressed for time.
12. EDGE of the Web
Erin Sparks has run this for years — a weekly news segment paired with interviews, often featuring names you'll recognize from the wider industry. It's high-energy, which either works for you or it doesn't, but the news coverage is consistent and the guest list is strong.
Best for: A weekly news-and-interview combo with some personality behind it.
Best Podcast for Beginners
13. SEO 101
Ross Dunn and Scott Van Achte have been running this since 2009, making it the longest continuously running SEO show around. The entire premise is teaching SEO from square one without burying beginners in jargon — and even John Mueller has admitted to listening.
Best for: Beginners and small business owners who want plain-English SEO, not acronyms.
Two Honorable Mentions Worth Knowing About
14. Niche Pursuits
Spencer Haws and Jared Bauman run this one, and it's less pure SEO and more how to build an online business that happens to run on search — real site owners walking through real traffic numbers and what a Google update did to them. It ranges wide into affiliate sites and monetization, so it's not a strictly SEO show, but it's a strong listen if that's closer to what you're after.
Best for: People building a content site who want honest numbers over theory.
Authority Hacker — a heads up before you subscribe
Gael Breton and Mark Webster's Authority Hacker podcast has been a fixture in the SEO and affiliate space since 2016. Worth flagging: as of 2026, the show has fully pivoted away from SEO and affiliate content into a general "AI That Actually Works" format — testing AI tools like Claude Code, covering model releases, and building AI-powered business workflows. If you subscribed expecting SEO tactics, recent episodes are a different show than the one that built the reputation. Still worth a listen if you want practical AI business workflows, just don't expect SEO-specific content anymore.
A Few Shows We Left Off, and Why
Two omissions worth explaining, since you'll still see them on other lists.
The Recipe for SEO Success was, for years, the show we handed beginners first. Kate Toon ran it for about a decade and made SEO genuinely approachable for small business owners before wrapping it up in early 2026 after close to 300 episodes. The back catalog is still worth mining. New episodes aren't coming.
Experts on the Wire by Dan Shure is one of the most technically interesting SEO shows ever made. It's not on this list because it barely publishes anymore. If you want a weekend project, the archive is a goldmine — just don't expect a new episode on any kind of schedule.
How to Actually Fit These Into Your Week
Fourteen podcasts sounds great until you realize that's ten-plus hours of audio and you have a job.
So don't subscribe to all of them. Pick two: one to stay current, one to make you think differently. If you're new to search, start with SEO 101 for fundamentals and Search News You Can Use so you're not blindsided by the next core update. That's it. Two shows, one for learning, one for staying current. Add a third once the first two feel like a habit instead of a chore.
The shows worth your time all share one thing in common: they're not just talking about rankings anymore. They're talking about whether AI engines recommend you at all — which is a different, and increasingly more important, question. That shift is exactly what AI Search Demand Generation is built to address: not whether you show up in a Google result, but whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity actively recommend your brand when a buyer asks.
If you run a SaaS company and want to know where you actually stand on that question, the Arobis AI Visibility Checker gives you a fast, free read on your current AI recommendation position.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best SEO podcast in 2026?
There isn't a single best one — it depends what you need. Search News You Can Use is the strongest choice for staying current on Google algorithm updates. Search Off the Record is the most authoritative primary source, straight from Google's own search team. Crawling Mondays and Search with Candour are the strongest picks if you specifically want AI search and AEO coverage.
What is the difference between an SEO podcast and an AI search or AEO podcast?
A classic SEO podcast focuses on ranking in Google's organic results — keyword research, backlinks, technical site health. An AI search or AEO podcast focuses on how AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity decide what to cite and recommend, which involves different signals: entity clarity, content structure, and third-party validation rather than backlinks alone.
Are any of these podcasts good for beginners?
SEO 101 is the clearest starting point — it's been teaching SEO from scratch since 2009 without assuming prior knowledge. Search News You Can Use is a good second show once you understand the basics, since it will keep you current on what's actually changing.
Which podcast covers AI search and Answer Engine Optimization best?
Crawling Mondays and Search with Candour are the two shows most explicitly built around AI search as its own discipline rather than an occasional topic bolted onto classic SEO coverage. Search Off the Record is the best primary source specifically for how Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode work.
How often do these podcasts release new episodes?
Most release weekly. Search Engine Roundtable publishes near-daily. Crawling Mondays releases roughly monthly but with more depth per episode. SEO 101 releases a couple of times a month.
Why isn't [a well-known SEO podcast] on this list?
A few well-known shows have stopped publishing regularly or gone fully quiet, including The Recipe for SEO Success and Experts on the Wire. Authority Hacker is still active but has pivoted entirely away from SEO content into general AI business workflows, so it's flagged separately rather than ranked as an SEO show. This list only includes shows currently publishing SEO or AI-search-specific content in 2026.
