How AI Overviews Shift Traffic From Publishers to Google
Google’s AI Overviews are seemingly designed to shift user clicks away from websites and nudge them towards Google ads. Zero-click answers leave many publishers struggling. “As we expand this experience,…
by Cyrus ShepardMay 8No commentsAnnouncing Zyppy List: A Next-Level Directory For Marketing Pros
With over a decade of marketing experience, we built a new type of marketing directory to help find companies with proven skills and experience. We think it’s the most honest…
by Cyrus ShepardFeb 12No commentsHow Many Pages Is Google’s Search Index Size?
It’s a big index, but faces growing pains Google rarely discusses the size of its web index—at least publicly. What exactly is Google’s index? Simply put, it’s a digital record…
by Cyrus ShepardOct 6No commentsI Disavowed Every Link To My Website. Here’s What Happened
Warning: Do not try this at home. I am a trained idiot SEO professional. Nearly two months ago, I disavowed every link to this website listed in Google Search Console…
by Cyrus ShepardJul 9No commentsHow Recent Google Updates Punish Good SEO: 50-Site Case Study
Using our database of over 4000 websites, we studied how on-page SEO factors correlated with winning or losing Google traffic. We found that Google’s Helpful Content system doesn’t seem to…
by Cyrus ShepardJun 18No commentsIntroducing the Google Page Quality Rating Scorecard
I secretly worked as a Google Quality Rater evaluating search results. I personally scored 1000s of websites according to Google’s guidelines. Based on this experience, I’ve created a scoring card…
by Cyrus ShepardMar 6No commentsWinning & Losing Big Google Updates: 50-Site Case Study
What on-page factors are associated with sites that see big gains or declines after Google updates? Turns out it’s not author boxes. Throughout 2023, Google released a series of Core,…
by Cyrus ShepardFeb 20No commentsI Secretly Worked As A Google Search Quality Rater (You Can Too)
Can’t believe they actually hired an SEO… To improve its search results, Google contracts 12,000 search quality raters around the world. Could I be one of them? Could you? Quality…
by Cyrus ShepardJul 11No commentsHow Google’s Selective Link Priority Impacts SEO (2023 Study)
What is Google’s Selective Link Priority? Selective Link Priority occurs when Google encounters multiple links on a page that target the same URL, typically with different anchor text. In this…
by Cyrus ShepardApr 11No comments23 Million Internal Links – SEO Case Study
Rethinking Internal Linking Best Practices Update: New data suggests that some sites with high anchor-text diversity may suffer under Google’s algorithm. Read the study. Most SEOs understand that links are…
by Cyrus ShepardJul 12No commentsGoogle Rewrites 61% of Page Title Tags [SEO Study]
Why Google Rewrites Your Titles and How to Stop It <title>Hey Google, Don’t Rewrite This (Please)</title> Title tags are what we call an outsized Google ranking factor. Like most Google ranking…
by Cyrus ShepardJul 12No commentsGooglespeak™ – How Google Limits Thought About Antitrust
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no…
by Cyrus ShepardAug 24No commentsCategory Page SEO: 10 Google-Boosting Tactics
Can you actually rank category pages? There’s a crazy rumor in SEO that Google doesn’t like to rank category pages. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you search,…
by Cyrus ShepardSep 5No comments15 Tips for Site Architecture SEO [Master Guide]
If you need to move the needle on website traffic and conversions, Site Architecture is often one of your toolkit’s most effective SEO levers. And yet, very few SEOs leverage…
by Cyrus ShepardAug 21No commentsDisavow: Sad Google Search Traffic Disavowing 35,000 Links
On April 3, 2013, I disavowed every link to this website I could find through Google Webmaster Tools. 35,000 links. Gone. It was an experiment, documented on Moz, to better…
by Cyrus ShepardJul 27No comments
