Cyrus Shepard

@cyrusshepard133K total followers

About

Founder of Zyppy - Follow for content about SEO, AI, Brand Marketing, Google Ranking Signals, Higher Traffic/Conversions, + 10x Content

Pinned

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. AI killed that strategy (1/2)

X (Twitter)

3 mths

New Post: Google decimated traffic to legions of websites. But traffic to other websites rose What makes the winners different? To quantify it, I analyzed 400+ sites, and the answers became obvious 5 Data-Backed Features Of Websites Winning Google in 2026 (1/2)

X (Twitter)

4 mths

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 22 Ranking Factors associated with earning AI citations

X (Twitter)

3 mths

Links

Zyppy

https://zyppy.com/

Zyppy Signal

https://signal.zyppy.com/

Latest posts

Google's biggest ranking "buckets", according to evidence collected at its antitrust trial, are: 1. Topicality: How relevant is the page to a topic/query. Heavily determined by the "ABC" ranking signals: • Anchors - the links pointing to the page • Body - the text on the page • Clicks - user click signals to determine relevance 2. Navboost: a re-ranking system that uses 13 months of user click data to adjust search results (first/long/last clicks) 3. Quality (Q*): One of Google's most important signals, based on site authority + quality adjustments (e.g., Panda, Helpful Content, spam) SEOs—including yours truly—often get distracted by shiny things. But focusing on these three ranking buckets will likely account for 80-90% of your Google visibility.

X (Twitter)

17 hr

People upset by AI companies watermarking text when it's already blazingly obvious they used AI to write every piece of content

X (Twitter)

1 day

0:04

Nice little demo how AI watermarking works: • Discretely influences word selection • Only detectable with the right key • Editing preserves the pattern • Only a full rewrite erases it

X (Twitter)

2 days

New: Content Effort - The Google Ranking Signal Nobody Talks About SEOs typically optimize for things they can easily measure, like keywords and links But Google has been measuring and scoring “subjective” factors like EFFORT for nearly 20 years, and we’ve barely noticed In the age of low-effort, scaled content, knowing the difference is important, and we CAN optimize for it

X (Twitter)

4 days

Basic AI optimization tip: position your company by nailing your brand facts e.g., [Brand] is a [product] targeting [customer], good at [problem] because of [differentiator] Do AI systems know exactly what you do by reading your home/about/product pages? Make it easy for them

X (Twitter)

5 days

My dream SEO tool 1) automatically tracks content changes 2) measures if traffic moves up/down, and 3) reports what changes made a difference So I built exactly that tool with @letaidocom as an #ahrefspartner. Cost pennies to run and we can scale it out to all our clients

X (Twitter)

1 wk

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

X (Twitter)

1 wk

New: These SEO Strategies Drive 90% of Your AI Visibility Asking if GEO/SEO are the same isn't the right question, it's seeing where they overlap. If you tweak traditional SEO, you can use the same strategies+tactics for • AI Inclusion • AI Citations • AI Recommendations 1/2

X (Twitter)

1 wk

Everybody's making more stuff. More content. More research. More landing pages. More apps. More tools. More software. More domains. More videos. More graphics. More reports. More. More. More. Very few people are making amazing stuff

X (Twitter)

2 wks

Turns out this silly Google Traffic simulator that took 45 minutes to vibe code generates more real traffic to my site than many blog posts that took days to write zyppy.com/traffic-simula…

X (Twitter)

3 wks

In an effort to be more like the Wayback Machine, Google's Page indexing report hasn't updated since July 9 - giving you a more "historic" snapshot of your SEO metrics

X (Twitter)

3 wks

Reddit has discussed shutting off Google's access to its content for AI use Other giant publishers might shut out Google completely Here's the entire text of the original Wall Street Journal article. The whole thing is worth reading 🧵1/2

X (Twitter)

3 wks

Google adding links to AI answers but they all point to Google properties

X (Twitter)

4 wks

Google Search Console is now showing search performance for my connected Twitter/X account This feels so very strange

X (Twitter)

1 mth

Wish you had a screenshot like this with your winning Google traffic? Need to show your client/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 1/3🧵

X (Twitter)

1 mth

Most ranking declines in 2026 aren't about technical SEO, but the types of content Google now rewards So I built a "Competitive SEO Pattern Report" using Agent A by @ahrefs It performs the exact process I use with clients to identify winning content patterns, but at 100x faster

X (Twitter)

2 mths

Google says it "ignores" llms.txt, so I was curious whether this is a 100% hard rule. Upon testing, Google obviously: - knows about llms.txt - reads and displays info from them - can cite llms.txt files in responses That said, highly doubtful any of this is useful for ranking.

X (Twitter)

2 mths

Is "Information Gain" a Google Ranking Factor? Excellent study via @ericlancheres: how much new information a URL has vs its rankings New info didn't move the needle much (but the top 3 results contained more than the rest) Biggest ranking predictor? # of unique data points

X (Twitter)

2 mths

Maybe a coincidence, but as soon as I claimed my Google Search Profile, searches for my name were suddenly correct

X (Twitter)

2 mths

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 AI overviews moved discovery + consideration away from your website - How optimizing for CTR can actually hurt you - A three-layer framework Google uses to evaluate every page - What Google's site quality patent reveals about branded search More: youtube.com/watch?v=YSvvHN…

X (Twitter)

2 mths

Cyrus Shepard

Pinned

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. AI killed that strategy (1/2)

New Post: Google decimated traffic to legions of websites. But traffic to other websites rose What makes the winners different? To quantify it, I analyzed 400+ sites, and the answers became obvious 5 Data-Backed Features Of Websites Winning Google in 2026 (1/2)

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 22 Ranking Factors associated with earning AI citations

Links

Latest posts

People upset by AI companies watermarking text when it's already blazingly obvious they used AI to write every piece of content

Nice little demo how AI watermarking works: • Discretely influences word selection • Only detectable with the right key • Editing preserves the pattern • Only a full rewrite erases it

Basic AI optimization tip: position your company by nailing your brand facts e.g., [Brand] is a [product] targeting [customer], good at [problem] because of [differentiator] Do AI systems know *exactly* what you do by reading your home/about/product pages? Make it easy for them

My dream SEO tool 1) automatically tracks content changes 2) measures if traffic moves up/down, and 3) reports what changes made a difference So I built *exactly* that tool with @letaidocom as an #ahrefspartner. Cost pennies to run and we can scale it out to all our clients

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, it's seeing where they overlap. If you tweak traditional SEO, you can use the same strategies+tactics for • AI Inclusion • AI Citations • AI Recommendations 1/2

Everybody's making more stuff. More content. More research. More landing pages. More apps. More tools. More software. More domains. More videos. More graphics. More reports. More. More. More. Very few people are making amazing stuff

Turns out this silly Google Traffic simulator that took 45 minutes to vibe code generates more real traffic to my site than many blog posts that took days to write zyppy.com/traffic-simula…

In an effort to be more like the Wayback Machine, Google's Page indexing report hasn't updated since July 9 - giving you a more "historic" snapshot of your SEO metrics

Reddit has discussed shutting off Google's access to its content for AI use Other giant publishers might shut out Google completely Here's the entire text of the original Wall Street Journal article. The whole thing is worth reading 🧵1/2

Google adding links to AI answers but they all point to Google properties

Google Search Console is now showing search performance for my connected Twitter/X account This feels so very strange

Wish you had a screenshot like this with your winning Google traffic? Need to show your client/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 1/3🧵

Most ranking declines in 2026 aren't about technical SEO, but the types of content Google now rewards So I built a "Competitive SEO Pattern Report" using Agent A by @ahrefs It performs the exact process I use with clients to identify winning content patterns, but at 100x faster

Google says it "ignores" llms.txt, so I was curious whether this is a 100% hard rule. Upon testing, Google obviously: - knows about llms.txt - reads and displays info from them - can cite llms.txt files in responses That said, highly doubtful any of this is useful for ranking.

Is "Information Gain" a Google Ranking Factor? Excellent study via @ericlancheres: how much *new information* a URL has vs its rankings New info didn't move the needle much (but the top 3 results contained more than the rest) Biggest ranking predictor? # of unique data points

Maybe a coincidence, but as soon as I claimed my Google Search Profile, searches for my name were suddenly correct

Basic AI optimization tip: position your company by nailing your brand facts e.g., [Brand] is a [product] targeting [customer], good at [problem] because of [differentiator] Do AI systems know exactly what you do by reading your home/about/product pages? Make it easy for them

My dream SEO tool 1) automatically tracks content changes 2) measures if traffic moves up/down, and 3) reports what changes made a difference So I built exactly that tool with @letaidocom as an #ahrefspartner. Cost pennies to run and we can scale it out to all our clients

Is "Information Gain" a Google Ranking Factor? Excellent study via @ericlancheres: how much new information a URL has vs its rankings New info didn't move the needle much (but the top 3 results contained more than the rest) Biggest ranking predictor? # of unique data points