Steve and Trevor kick things off with an update on Steve’s eBay reselling side hustle: where he sources inventory, how he checks sold data before buying, which odd items turn a profit, and how AI agents now handle most of his listing work. Then Trevor brings up parasite SEO, a topic that keeps showing up in his X feed, including the idea that a well-structured LinkedIn article can get cited in a Google AI Overview within a day. The guys talk through why parasite SEO has been around for years, why tactics like this tend to be temporary, and why it’s hard to sell as a service when you can’t tie a Reddit thread or LinkedIn post back to revenue.
Takeaways
- Steve sources eBay inventory from Goodwill, garage sales, and estate sales. Margins are thin after fees, so he only buys when the resale price clearly clears the cost.
- Before buying, check eBay’s sold listings to see how many units moved in the last 90 days and at what price. Low competition plus proven demand means a fast flip, like a $12 drum machine that sold for $75 in three days.
- Odd items can be surprisingly valuable, like a vintage 8mm cassette rewinder or remotes for devices that aren’t made anymore.
- eBay’s promoted listings charge a percentage of the sale (roughly 3% to 20%) instead of a cost per click, which raises the question of whether the item would have sold anyway.
- AI now writes and polishes listings in seconds, but pricing still needs a human feel for supply and demand, and eBay is quick to flag bot activity.
- Parasite SEO means borrowing a high-authority site’s strength, like posting a LinkedIn article that gets cited in an AI Overview within 24 hours, instead of waiting months for your own site to rank.
- It isn’t new. Older versions were malicious, with hackers injecting hidden affiliate pages into other people’s sites, and tactics like this usually work only until Google devalues them, as it seems to have done with Reddit recently.
- Reddit and LinkedIn strategies have real value, but they need an authentic internal brand voice, so they work better as consulting advice than as a managed service.
- Attribution is the hard part: you can’t tie a LinkedIn post or Reddit thread to revenue, and organic traffic is already sliding into direct and AI channels even when rankings hold steady.
- Treat flashy tactics as side tests on top of the SEO basics (title tags, meta descriptions, internal links), and set clear expectations with clients about what you can and can’t report on.