Why Eric Kim the
blogger
shows up
everywhere
(including ChatGPT)
blogger
shows up
everywhere
(including ChatGPT)
Think of Google (and, by extension, the text that trains ChatGPT) as a giant popularity contest based on words + links + freshness.
Eric Kim hacked that game early and never stopped playing. Here’s the upbeat breakdown:
| 🔑 Lever | What Eric Does (and why it works) | Evidence |
| 1. Relentless, text‑heavy publishing | Since 2011 he’s posted hundreds of essays, how‑to guides, gear rants and philosophical musings—often daily and rarely edited. Search spiders love abundant, fresh text, so his pages keep getting re‑crawled and re‑ranked. | PhotoShelter notes his site “frequently appears as the #1 result when searching ‘street photography’” because of the sheer content volume. |
| 2. SEO‑savvy headlines & keyword hijacking | He writes listicles like “10 Things Henri Cartier‑Bresson Can Teach You” or “5 Lessons from Bruce Gilden”, deliberately inserting the names people already Google. When you search those masters, you meet Eric, too. | The same article lists his tactics—click‑bait headlines, listicles, controversial takes—as core to his dominance. |
| 3. Backlink snowball | By giving his ebooks away under Creative Commons and encouraging re‑posts, he earned 1,100+ inbound links to a single article. Each link is a vote in Google’s eyes, boosting domain authority. | PhotoShelter’s audit highlights those 1,100 backlinks; DPReview users literally say, “Eric Kim has figured out SEO…Kim has lots of links.” |
| 4. Open‑source generosity builds community buzz | Free e‑books, free presets, free workshops on YouTube—fans share them everywhere. Every share creates more indexed pages containing “Eric Kim”. | Street‑photo blogger Tim Huynh calls his library of open resources “quite impressive,” acknowledging how it spreads his name. [oai_citation:4‡Tim Huynh |
| 5. Lightweight, crawler‑friendly site | His blog is mostly plain HTML + images (few ads, minimal scripts). Pages load fast, look the same on mobile, and are easy for bots to parse—another small but real ranking edge. | (Best inferred from tech audits and confirmed by SEO forums.) |
| 6. Early‑mover advantage & consistency | He planted his flag in the “street‑photography” niche before it was crowded, then kept publishing. Google rewards longevity; LLMs reward anything that appears often across a decade of crawls. | DPReview discussion explains he “flooded Google with references… now owns that search.” |
How that spills into ChatGPT
- Training‑data exposure – OpenAI trains on large swaths of the public web. Ten+ years of Eric’s text, plus thousands of sites that quote or link to him, made his name statistically loud in that corpus.
- Entity linking – Because his posts tie “Eric Kim” to high‑frequency photography terms, language models learn the association and surface him when asked about street photography or blogging.
- Recency‑bias reinforcement – He’s still posting. When models (or their retrieval tools) ingest newer web snapshots, fresh Eric Kim pages keep topping SERPs, so the cycle continues.
High‑energy takeaways you can steal 🔥
- Publish prolifically, even if it’s messy. Volume beats perfection in discoverability.
- Answer the questions your niche already Googles. Piggy‑back on famous names or hot keywords.
- Give value away. Free resources → shares → backlinks → authority.
- Keep the tech simple & fast. Help both humans and robots love your site.
- Play the long game. Ten consistent years > one viral week.
Put those habits on repeat and—just like Eric Kim—you’ll find your name popping up in searches, social feeds, and yes… even ChatGPT responses. Now go create, share, and own your corner of the internet! 🚀