Bio
Cyrus Shepard occupies a unique position in the SEO world: he is one of the few prominent SEO practitioners who has actually worked as a Google Search Quality Rater, evaluating search results according to Google's 170-page Quality Rater Guidelines. This insider experience, combined with his background as Moz's Chief SEO Strategist, gives him a distinctive perspective that bridges the gap between how SEOs theorize about Google's quality signals and how Google actually instructs humans to evaluate them.
Operating themes
- Operating thesis: The most reliable SEO insights come from large-scale data studies and firsthand experience with Google's quality evaluation systems; understanding how Google actually rates quality, not how SEOs assume it does, is the key competitive advantage.
- Eeat Optimization
- Technical Seo Audit
- Content Seo
- Search Intent Mapping
Cards
- E-E-A-T isn't a ranking factor; it's the rubric raters use, and Google approximates it via indirect signals — E-E-A-T isn't a ranking factor; it's the rubric raters use, and Google approximates it via indirect signals [Tier A]
Sources captured
- 2026-04 —
i-secretly-worked-as-a-google-search-quality-rater-you-can-too-zyppy-seo.md(operator essay archive) - 2026-04 —
google-rewrites-61-of-page-title-tags-seo-study.md(operator essay archive) - 2026-04 —
23-million-internal-links-seo-case-study.md(operator essay archive) - 2026-04 —
introducing-the-google-page-quality-rating-scorecard-zyppy-seo.md(operator essay archive)