Search news with its caveats intact.
Webcology tracks the web marketing world as it shifts under search updates, AI tools, privacy questions, and platform power. Its loose two-way rhythm turns technical news into practical warnings for people who work close to traffic, rankings, and clients.
PRESS PLAY
Webcology is a long-running SEO and digital marketing conversation for people who need to understand what search platforms are doing before the dust settles. It is quick on its feet. Episodes move from Google core updates and Discover changes into AI search, local results, copyright lawsuits, data leaks, social media regulation, client work, and the broader pressure that technology companies put on public life. The style is talky and corrective, with arguments assembled in real time instead of delivered as tidy monologues. That is part of the appeal. The show sounds like working practitioners comparing notes while the industry keeps changing beneath them. It treats SEO as a practical business discipline, but not as an isolated trade. Search is connected to publishing revenue, privacy, AI training data, platform incentives, government policy, and whether users can still trust what they read online. Webcology is particularly sharp when discussing AI. ChatGPT shopping, localized results, Gemini image limits, RAG workflows, AI agents, and enterprise security failures are not framed as novelty stories; they become warnings about data, trust, infrastructure, and careless adoption. The show can also widen into uncomfortable territory, including political stress, social media harm, tariffs, harassment, and the mood of clients and communities. Those turns are not decorative. They reflect a view that the internet now sits inside nearly every economic and civic system. Interviews bring in named industry figures such as Dixon Jones, but the core texture remains conversational and skeptical. The pacing can feel crowded, with sponsor mentions, weather, side comments, and resumed threads sharing space with substantial analysis. Listeners looking for pristine segments may find it unruly. Listeners who work in SEO, content, analytics, publishing, or web strategy may find the unruliness useful, because it keeps the uncertainty visible. Webcology is strongest when it takes a headline that sounds narrow and shows why it matters to rankings, revenue, reputation, and client decisions next week.
Made for: Webcology suits SEO professionals, content marketers, consultants, publishers, and technically curious business owners who track search, AI, and platform change closely. It is best for listeners comfortable with fast, opinionated industry talk.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its live-feeling mix of tactical SEO awareness and broader platform skepticism. It connects ranking updates and marketing tools to AI risk, publisher economics, privacy, and public trust without smoothing out the uncertainty.
Webcology takes a deeper look at the ecosystem of the Internet as it affects webmasters and web marketers from the points of view of two well known web marketers, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies. Based on interviews with special high-profile guests or panels, Webcology introduces, explores and explains how the various segments of the web marketing world work.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Webcology connects search and AI developments to the corporate power, policy choices, and operating risks shaping digital marketing.
Webcology follows Jim Hedger and Christine Schackinger through the fast-moving consequences of search, AI, and platform policy. Their conversational analysis keeps technical developments tied to operating questions: what a Google update changes, why unreliable shopping data…
A core update walks into a chatbot shopping pitch; Jim and Christine ask where your location data goes.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose but useful discussion of recent search and AI product changes.
Webcology tracks a busy week in search, moving from Google's still-running Core Update to Ask Maps and then into OpenAI's location sharing, frozen projects, and a shopping feature that seems to be having a rough go.
SEO workflow, AI search risk, and Britannica's complaint carry the episode.
Webcology opens with the spring-equinox setup and then settles into search, AI, and publisher rights. Jim Hedger and Christine Schackinger spend much of the hour on Britannica's complaint against OpenAI, paying closer attention to the mechanics than to the headline: scraped…
Webcology turns AI-agent access into a concrete, human discussion of enterprise privacy risk.
Webcology begins in a grim register, with Jim Hedger and Christine Chackinger weighing how digital tools can amplify misinformation, hatred, and division while the people working around them try to keep the work useful.
A clear, grounded discussion of AI compute, platform policy, and the pressure behind both.
Webcology frames AI infrastructure as a business problem before it becomes a product story. Jim Hedger and Christine Schackinger link OpenAI's hunt for enough compute to the argument that Google can run compute at about half the cost, then carry that pressure into Google's…
A clear look at platform policy, trade pressure, and Apple's AI plans.
Webcology frames the internet as a system shaped by politics, economics, and public life, then applies that lens to social-media access for people under 16 and tariff pressure around Canada's trade talks with the United States.
A loose search-industry discussion tests X's subscriber math against its free-premium pitch.
Webcology frames platform upheaval as a business problem with a human annoyance underneath it: people trying to work out where attention is going as the search industry moves through a strange, economically bleak moment in early 2024.
Webcology tracks how Los Angeles fires, political pressure, and platform speech collide.
Webcology's second show of 2025 starts in a charged place, with the Los Angeles fires and a political fight over online speech pressing into the same frame.
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
SaaS operators on scaling, pricing and AI, metrics included.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Jim Hedger and Christine Schrader host Webcology on March 28, 2024, discussing emotional struggles in the SEO industry amid economic uncertainty.
This episode discusses the rapidly changing web landscape in late 2024, focusing on challenges facing Google from DOJ recommendations and OpenAI developments during the holiday season.
This episode features an interview with Dixon Jones, CEO of Waikay.IO, discussing his role in creating SEO/SEM tools like WAKE, InLinks, and Majestic, while emphasizing his marketing focus over programming.
This episode discusses the implications of Donald Trump's re-election for international relations and businesses, particularly in the context of SEO and content marketing tools like Audiosky.
Jim Hedger and Christine Schrader open Webcology's 2025 season discussing the California wildfires and Jimmy Carter's legacy.
Jim Hedger and Christine Schackinger open the September 24, 2026 episode of Webcology with Google's September 2026 spam update, a rollout expected to take about two weeks versus two days for the August 2026 update.
April 3 lands with Google's core update still in motion, so Jim and Christine treat the rollout as business they cannot close yet.
The March 19, 2026 cold open starts with seasonal whiplash.
Webcology opens on March 12, 2026, with Jim Hedger and Christine Chackinger reacting to war news, fake AI video, and the problem of sharing unverified footage from Iran and Tel Aviv.
This episode discusses the completion of the February 2026 Google Discover core update and includes announcements about sponsors and an upcoming interview.
This episode of Webcology discusses recent developments in SEO and AI, featuring hosts Jim Hedger and Christine Schachinger sharing industry news and personal updates.
Webcology on WMR.fm, dated February 5, 2026, centers on Google Discover, OpenAI, and Elon Musk's XAI across one episode with Jim Hedger and Christine Schackinger.
Webcology opens on January 23, 2026, with Jim Hedger from Digital Always Media and Christine Shackletcher from Sites Without Walls unpacking a week where the internet feels tangled up with politics, economics, and daily life.
This episode features an interview with Dixon Jones, CEO of Waikay.IO, discussing his background, his role in creating SEO/SEM tools like WAKE, InLinks, and Majestic, and his humorous take on awards and teamwork.
This episode discusses the intersection of AI, the American government, and SEO technology, starting with a story about Doge.