Tony Simba | SEO guy

SEO marketing manager. Data analysis process coordinator. Core expertise in building sales funnels and developing digital products.

[Barry Schwartz @rustybrick]

Google AI Mode tests citation counts and favicons below the link cards https://t.co/qyd7drez2O

[SE Ranking @SERanking]

Save this thread and come back to all the insights after the event 🔥

Have a question for the speakers? Drop it here:

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@GrailsStephan If only every dev/founder thought like this... my job would be 10x easier. Solid reminder that UX and SEO are basically the same thing at this point.

[Kyle Balmer @iamkylebalmer]

Most people want to crush their marketing in 2025.

But can't do short form video.

I was the same.

Then in 2024 I went from 0 to 200k followers using short-form video.

I document my exact steps in my new playbook.

Want it free?

Must Follow + Reply ‘shorts’ = I’ll DM you it.

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

What do you think?

[Matt Diggity @mattdiggityseo]

What are your predictions for SEO in 2025?

(Get credited in an upcoming video if I use your theory).

[Barry Schwartz @rustybrick]

Google's @JohnMu says Google does not count links or words on your blog posts https://t.co/sgCpewrzc2

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@LidiaInfanteM SE Ranking is worth checking out. It might not be on your list, but it’s actually pretty solid for content SEO. It handles stuff like competitor scraping, AI rewriting, and keyword tweaking really well.

But, you know... Everything depends on your needs 😅

[Barry Schwartz @rustybrick]

Someone dropped a comment on @seroundtable saying the Google core update will drop tomorrow but then deleted it - here is a screenshot of that comment before it was deleted from https://t.co/4PmhOEMx0Q

[Marie Haynes @Marie_Haynes]

🤔 @vschmalbach says Google will only index content that's novel, or authoritative or from recognizable brands.

Thoughts?
https://t.co/W6Iov2pMNY

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

People are still talking about the best rank trackers in 2024. For me, this is too obvious to discuss. Bur Reddit remains Reddit 🙃 #SEO community is incredible

https://t.co/cEFyfUL7eW

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@JamarSeo @SERanking @JuliaEMcCoy @rustybrick Don't bother explaining anything about AIOs or whatever. If they trust you, you'll be fine. Just do your job.

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@SaraRami_1994 @SERanking @JuliaEMcCoy @rustybrick Google doesn't care about minor local websites. You'll be fine.

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@JulianGoldieSEO @ChatGPTapp @yousearchengine @ahrefs @semrush @Moz @cuppa_sh @autobloggingai @heyjasperai @WriteSonic It's funny, but I use @Google services, @SERanking , and @OpenAI for almost all of these points. I love when all the information is processed in a couple of platforms, keeping it within one understandable framework.

[Barry Schwartz @rustybrick]

Google says you can recover from the damage of the Sept helpful content update with the next core update https://t.co/WjFoOmGQzr via @searchliaison

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@SERanking Easy in terms of workflow, but difficult during competition-rising

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@Niche_Lion 1) @SERanking - one of the sharpest k-words database. Professional tool, great price

2) @keysearchco - fresh and affordable. One of the most interesting SEO startups last years

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@Ldnbox What I've seen from SE Ranking and Ahrefs:

- Strong SM presence.
- Clean link profile.
- Fast pages. Design isn't their priority, but in this case it's fine
- And their content? All about cats! 🐱 🤣
- will see the tech pat after website audit...

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@garethaboyd Good point. However, the key difference here is that GSC is a tool, whereas platforms like Ahrefs are SEO platforms. I set up SE Ranking for my agency, and that day was the best. We collected all the data from our SEO tools in one platform and started to absorb real SEO things😅

[Tony Simba | SEO guy @asimba77]

@seonoobi Could you suggest any tools for keyword research specifically for Pinterest? SE Ranking, Ahrefs...? Perhaps something tailored for image searches? Also, do you know how agencies track their project positions?

Thanks for your post! Solid numbers 💪

[Lily Ray 😏 @lilyraynyc]

I hate to say this, but my 30+ person SEO team and I just went through several examples of sites that claim to have super helpful content and were hit unfairly by the HCU.

The consensus? A lot of the content on these sites was found to be... pretty unhelpful. Sure, some of the articles were decent (especially newer ones), but the archives showed all kinds of patterns of less than helpful content. Remember that Google was evaluating sitewide patterns with this update, not individual articles.

I am not saying this situation is true for every site, but I think it's really important to remember that just because you think your content is helpful does not always imply that the majority of your readers do.

I am also not saying the HCU didn't go too far because I still also very much believe that to be true. And I'm still waiting for this update to finish rolling out before sharing further opinions on that, but I do have them. Strong ones.

But I just wanted to share the possibility that using real authors, writing in the first person, claiming to have actually tried the products or visited the place sometimes is *still* not sufficient to actually be sharing helpful content.

I just read a travel article about visiting Barcelona and the best things to see there? Yawn. I've been to Barcelona many times and totally disagree with the writer's examples. I found them super generic, with no actual indication that the writer has recently been to those locations, how crowded they are, how awful the lines can be, etc. To me, THAT's helpful content.

We looked at a few other travel examples where people on my team were either 1) from that place or 2) have visited that place. The articles included generic information, unhelpful/random affiliate links that could apply to traveling anywhere, checklists that lacked context, advice that wasn't relevant or updated, etc.

We looked at product review examples where the content was indeed written by humans, but aside from saying "I tested this," it contained no actual first-hand guidance, no original ideas, no personal anecdotes, and no true experience or advice above and beyond what's included on other review sites.

And before you @ me with "well the big sites do all those things too," yeah. I know that. The big sites were not hit by the HCU. The majority of their content did not fall into this category. Many of them have decades of history on and off Google. The rules apply differently. I am not endorsing this or saying it's a good thing, but those are the rules of the game.

I plan to make a video about this but I'm sort of afraid I'll get my head chopped off.