Cyrus Maxx

New: How to Create Links Google Can't Ignore Drawing on official patents, Google's API leak, trial testimony, and 10+ years' experience working with links 1. New Information Links 2. Magical Power Links 3. Editorial Diversity 4. Anchor Context 5. Topic Stability signal.zyppy.com/p/links-goog... 🙏

Testing: When you encourage users to select your website as a "Preferred Source" in Google, the difference they see in search results can be significant - especially for searches you already rank for

Helpful Tip: Since Google updated its docs on Helpful Content, lots of folks are talking about "Effort", along w/ fake author profiles Effort ≠ work In the age of low-effort, scaled AI content getting decimated, understanding “high-effort” is increasingly relevant signal.zyppy.com/p/content-ef...

When I opted this website out of Google's AI search features, AI impressions dropped *instantly* Seemingly in minutes But after opting back in, AI visibility is taking MUCH LONGER to return. Watch this space.

We put every single Google "ranking factor" from our 2026 Expert Survey in one giant, enormous, far-too-big chart It's SO big we couldn't upload the full thing here It's SO big it blocks the sun It's SEO big signal.zyppy.com/p/full-2026-...

New: How do you “rank” in Google AI? What factors determine if Google’s AI answers recommend your brand or website? To find out, we asked 130+ search experts, many at the very top of their field, what moves the needle. signal.zyppy.com/p/google-ai-... Big thanks to all our contributors 🙏

10/10 SEO tip via the Google Ranking Factors Survey "Using AI to help you publish ten times the amount of the same quality content in half the time is not as good as using AI to help you publish the same amount of content,but ten times the quality" Everett Sizemore signal.zyppy.com/p/google-ran...

New: The 2026 Google Ranking Factors Expert Survey signal.zyppy.com/p/google-ran... We surveyed 131 top SEOs to score which factors most affect Google's organic search rankings. Together, the experts contributed over 13,000 data points and 100s of comments. Big thanks to the contributors!

New - Content Effort: The Google Ranking Signal Nobody Talks About Google has talked about, measured, and scored qualities like EFFORT for nearly 20 years, and we’ve barely noticed Effort isn’t what you think it is. Effort ≠ work. It's something way more important signal.zyppy.com/p/content-ef...

Goddamn, I envy the simplicity and clarity that @zyppy.com has when writing articles. This is a great piece on SEO&AEO, that the overlap is quite significant, including what lever we all have on each case. signal.zyppy.com/p/seo-strate... Thank you Cyrus!

Haters will say it's fake, but here's how we started reporting rising Google traffic with this one simple trick 📈

New: These SEO Strategies Drive 90% of Your AI Visibility Asking if GEO/SEO are the same isn't the right question. If you tweak traditional SEO, you can use the same strategies+tactics for • AI Inclusion • AI Citations • AI Recommendations signal.zyppy.com/p/seo-strate...

I heard we are supposed to publish self-promotional listicles of questionable accuracy. So here are the world's top bald SEO experts: 1. Cyrus Shepard 2. Mark Williams-Cook 3. John Mueller 4. Nathan Gotch 5. Rand Fishkin 6. Danny Sullivan 7. Matt Cutts

What happened to 100 "Content" blogs before Google's HCU and AI Overviews? 85% lost traffic, 11 collapsed, but a handful actually GREW (here's where the lesson is) Great analysis: "The Great Blogging Collapse" danielstanica.com/posts/Great-...

Wish you had screenshots like these with your winning Google traffic? Need to show the boss evidence of your SEO brilliance? Now you can! I built a Google Traffic Simulator that generates traffic charts for any value you choose. Now, anyone can be an SEO genius zyppy.com/traffic-simu...

New: You already know about AI fan-out queries You ALSO likely know that ranking for fan-out queries can increase your chances of getting cited in AI answers But how do you optimize for this? I couldn't find a great guide, so I wrote one. signal.zyppy.com/p/fan-out-fr... Hope you find it useful

Strange to think that Backlinko is owned by Semrush, which is owned by Adobe, which is owned by investor funds like BlackRock and Vanguard If you have any money in index funds or retirement accounts, you probably own a little piece of Backlinko yourself It's Backlinko all the way down

My latest podcast episode is now live

The State of SEO in 2026 Great conversation with the folks at @Adsy_Com - covered nearly every major SEO topic of the year: - Why Google doesn't know who should rank number one until you tell them - How optimizing for CTR can actually hurt you - More, more, more www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSvv...

Close, Google So close

This video is my weird fantasy about eating, and I think it could become yours. Please enjoy French Bread House. (sound on)

If Google doesn't want your content anymore, what do you do? Had a blast talking with Aneta Samkoff for the Odsy podcast -Affiliate sites win by showing real evidence -93% of winners had proprietary assets -Ranking No. 1 still beats AI citations And more, More, MORE www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz6D...

New: Ask Me Anything on r/SEO_for_AI — run by @seosmarty.bsky.social - AI Citation Ranking Factors" - Type of content Google rewards in the age of AI - Ranking signals rewarded by Google's Helpful Content systems - Click+engagement signals in ranking content www.reddit.com/r/SEO_for_AI...

Honored to be named Best Speaker of SEO Vibes Summit '26 (though several others were likely more deserving) So remember, the next time you read a post from me, you won't be reading a post from just anybody... You'll be reading a post from award-winning Best Speaker Cyrus Shepard 😏 Think on that

Do Google AI Citation links actually matter? - Best place to rank = #1 Organically - AI Overviews drop CTRs by 50-60% - AI citations themselves send very little traffic But AI Overview citation links have a surprising benefit sorry for the cheesy thumbnail: youtu.be/ynT4ue7bEu4?...

1st Rule of Ranking Factor Club: Someone will get mad at you for calling them "Ranking Factors"

New: AI Citation Ranking Factors Everyone talks about AI Citations as a way to boost visibility + traffic, but what works? To find out I gathered every study/experiment from the past 2 years and scored the biggest wins The result? 22 AI Citation Ranking Factors signal.zyppy.com/p/ai-citatio...

What kind of websites survive Google Zero? www.youtube.com/shorts/IgB1E...

📊 A 3 Layer Framework to Measure AI Presence, Readiness and Business Impact: Redefining Metrics for the AI Search Era - A new guide where I propose a structured way to measure, diagnose, and prioritize AI search: www.aleydasolis.com/en/ai-search...

Very informative slide via Google's Danny Sullivan explaining the difference between "Commodity" vs "Non-Commodity" content Google prefers the later IMO, lots of evidence this is spot-on, not where Google is going in the future, but where it already is now

Today I need to create a deck for an upcoming talk, because I waited until the last minute

17 Content Types to Survive Google’s Zero-Click Future - Excellent research by @zyppy.com 👇 We know that Google favors different types of sites now. Winning content tends to be proprietary, unique, and solves problems beyond providing information. ....

New: 17 Content Types to Survive Google’s Zero-Click Future Google Zero is coming for many sites, but Google still sends billions of visits per day to the web What kind of content survives? Not generic blog posts. Companies need to shift their content strategy signal.zyppy.com/p/content-go...

New: How to Prepare for AI Shopping & the Future of E-commerce SEO My interview with @timresnik.bsky.social 1. SEOs are sleeping on product feeds 2. SEO Basics become a competitive edge 3. Brand & Loyalty play outsized roles 4. True Agentic Commerce isn't here yet signal.zyppy.com/p/ai-shopping

After a long day of SEO marketing, I like to relax and catch up on the latest LLMs.txt files

New: I analyzed 400+ winning/losing sites in Google search results SEO is far from dead, but it's shifted to sites with very clear profiles And if you're going to invest in SEO in 2026 and beyond, you'll want to pay attention signal.zyppy.com/p/winning-go...

Starting NOW over at Reddit: reddit.com/r/localsearch/ Ask me anything about your Marketing / SEO / AI / brand strategy in 2026 April 8, 2026 at 1PM ET

Nifty Tool: "Will it Crawl?" Helps you see if Googlebot can crawl your URL before reaching a 2MB limit willitcrawl.com FYI, it's really difficult to find pages that exceed the 2MB limit, but they exist. Via Rodrigo Stockebrand

⏳ End of an Era: The Final Live Actionable AI For Marketers Course starts next Tue, Apr 6th! We're expanding the ways marketers can learn AI, so this is the last time this course will run as a live, small-group experience with direct, hands-on attention from me.

So @dejanseo.bsky.social built an AI Brand Authority Index, and it’s super cool Search 122M brands/domains ranked by AI recall + web authority These are the brands that ALREADY live in Gemini's memory, “ranked by frequency and personalized pagerank” Check out your own brand: authority.dejan.ai

🚨 How Google Click Signals Drive SEO Rankings and AI Answers - A must read piece by @zyppy.com going through how Google is trying to answer three broad questions from user click data. Check it out: signal.zyppy.com/p/google-cli...

New post, and my first on Substack! "The AI SEO Playbook for Google Click Signals" How user click signals drive website visibility for both Google rankings and AI answers What exactly are these click signals, and can marketers influence them? Read & subscribe: signal.zyppy.com/p/google-cli...

Easily one of the best posts on AI marketing this week "GEO Experiment: How AI highlighted the 1 bad review we got in 24 years" Tackling negative brand information in AI answers via @wilreynolds.bsky.social www.seerinteractive.com/insights/geo...

I fired my SEO agency It was Neil Patel The end.