Cyrus Shepard Spills Secret SEO Hacks to Rank #1 on Google 🚀

“We think Google can understand our content, but they can’t.” Cyrus Shepard’s research shows Google leans heavily on what users do. 🖱️

At the Chiang Mai SEO conference, during a run of brutal Google updates, I sat down with SEO legend Cyrus Shepard. 🎙️

We talked about the red flags on hit sites, SGE, the real top three ranking factors, AI content, and a five-minute trick for unique images. 🚀

📊 In this episode, we unpacked:

• 🚩 What hit sites have in common
• 🤖 Why he’s not panicking about SGE
• 🖱️ Google relies on user signals
• 🏆 The top 3 ranking factors
• 💎 Your unique value proposition
• 🔗 Nofollow ratios and Google’s direction

🎥 Watch the full episode:

🚩 What Hit Sites Have in Common

After the helpful content, spam and core updates, “a lot of people are hurting,” and only a tiny number are recovering. Symptoms he’s seen on hit sites:

• 📺 Lots of ads, especially elements that scroll with the user and cover content
• 🖼️ Non-original images, like stock photos or images borrowed from other sites
• 📜 Answers buried after endless scrolling

Sites doing well often use first-person language: “I love this product… this is how we test.” ✍️

Recovery isn’t easy. Sites often have to redo content and images, move answers higher, and take a hard look at their business model. For more patterns, read Kyle Roof on why display ad sites got hit. 🔗

🤖 Why He’s Not Panicking About SGE

Research by his colleagues showed SGE appeared in only about 30% of SERPs, and Google kept shrinking it with each update. 📉

He expects it to grow again, especially for commercial queries where Google wants to enter the affiliate space. That hurts affiliates more than brands. 🛒

His mitigation: pivot toward video. AI can’t replace video yet, and people keep watching more of it. ▶️

🖱️ Google Relies on User Signals

Having spent six months working as a Google quality rater, Cyrus says you need three things to rank: content, links (with anchor text being the most important part), and user interaction signals. 🧩

“Google doesn’t work unless they have those user interaction signals. They don’t want us to know that, but they fall apart.” 👆

That means real users clicking, scrolling and hovering, plus algorithms trained through machine learning on the work of about 16,000 quality raters. A machine can’t judge quality, but a user can. 🧠

For a tactic that leans on this, read SEO Jesus on engagement signals. 🔗

🏆 The Top 3 Ranking Factors

They haven’t changed. Google used to say content, links and RankBrain. “What we didn’t realize at the time was RankBrain is actually clicks.” 🏆

💎 Your Unique Value Proposition

Programmatic SEO can work in certain niches, like legal publishers posting thousands of court cases. But with programmatic or AI content, ask: what’s your unique value proposition? 💎

“If you’re just publishing AI content, why is Google going to rank you when they can just do it themselves?” You need something hard to replicate or scale, or you have no moat. 🏰

An easy win: instead of using the same manufacturer phone images as a million other sites, overlay arrows and notes (“this camera’s great”) and your watermark, with permission. It takes a designer five minutes, helps users, and can earn the thumbnail and clicks. 🎨

For more on uniqueness at scale, read Koray Tuğberk on AI and programmatic SEO. 🔗

🔗 Nofollow Ratios and Google’s Direction

Worried about too many dofollow versus nofollow links? He hasn’t seen it matter much. The web is messy: sitemaps, hreflang, canonicals and nofollow are “just hints to Google.” There may be edge cases that trip a machine learning pattern, but most people needn’t worry. 🕸️

With Reddit, LinkedIn and Quora spam ranking and Google facing court cases, he expects Google to “take a good hard look in the mirror” and decide who it wants to be. He pointed to a recent post by his friend AJ Kohn, a rarely blogging SEO respected by Google, that captures what’s wrong. 🪞

For another view on Google’s direction, read Charles Floate on parasite SEO and a confused Google. 🔗

📝 Key Takeaways From the Cyrus Shepard Interview

• 🚩 Sticky ads, non-original images and buried answers are red flags
• ✍️ First-person, tested experience performs better
• ▶️ Pivot toward video to hedge against SGE
• 🖱️ User interaction signals are a core ranking input
• 🏆 Content, links and clicks remain the top 3 factors
• 🎨 Make even simple images unique

❓ FAQs About Cyrus Shepard

What do sites hit by Google’s helpful content update have in common?

According to Cyrus Shepard: heavy ads (especially sticky ones that cover content), non-original images, and answers buried far down the page.

What are the top 3 ranking factors?

Content, links and RankBrain, which Cyrus says is effectively clicks, or user interaction signals.

Is AI content okay for SEO?

It can be, but you need a unique value proposition. If your content is only AI, Google can generate it itself.

Does the dofollow-to-nofollow ratio matter?

Cyrus hasn’t seen it matter much. These are hints to Google, and the web is messy.

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• Bill Slawski Veteran SEO Expert On Google Ranking Factors
• How to Do restaurant SEO and Rank #1 on Google and LLMS ft. Andrea Abbondanza

Which red flag is on your site right now? Share this with an SEO still waiting to recover. 💬

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