iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 04/07/2025

Never once in my life have I received a marketing email from the Social Security Administration. Smells a lot like "we basically killed Medicare for all our constituents and they are gonna be PISSED so we're covering our asses in advance - and kissing a certain President's at the same time."

Screenshot of a marketing email from the SSA, with the text: "Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is celebrating the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans."

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 16/06/2025

Well hello AIO *in position 4* - treated like any other SERP feature. (Or 3, I suppose, if the featured snippet counts as position 0. Whatever - you get my point!) Anyone else seeing this? 👀 👀 👀

Screenshot of a Google query with the AIO in position 4 after a featured snippet and 2 organic listings

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 03/06/2025

PSA for JavaScript SEO: "Replace" is not a real redirect. Looking at you, Nuxt router Replace() method! 👀 (But also, ya'll, it's "not recommended" in their documentation for a reason.)

Screenshot of Nuxt's documentation for URL Routing, where a there's advice for routing users around a website based on a browser's History API. On this list they reference a method called "replace()" which is not recommended in the documentation.

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 15/05/2025

Measuring LLM Visibility (Part 2 of 3): Benchmarking "Brand Definitions" Part of achieving "great visibility" on LLMs is ensuring that these bots: 1) Can connect the dots on existing brand mentions - to *your brand* (...)

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 14/05/2025

Let's play a game! AI-generation, or bad photoshop job?! (As spotted on the homepage of a major bank in the US.)

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 05/05/2025

Google: 404s are fine! They are part of the natural web. You can just ignore them and we will, too. Also Google, upon seeing a staging site start to deliver 404s *and* a GSC Removal request: I WILL CRAWL YOU 530k TIMES!

Screenshot of GSC's Crawl Stats > Crawl Requests report for Not Found (404) URLs, showing a very large spike at the end culminating in 530k crawl requests over a short period of days.

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 11/04/2025

When you are Googling to confirm dates for "SEO on the Beach" and you hit enter too soon, apparently you get... "seo on the bead"? Which AIO thinks is a real thing?! 🤨

Screenshot of Google results for the query "seo on the bea" - supposed to be "seo on the beach", but I hit enter too soon! - and Google AIOs are giving a confident answer about "seo on the bead"

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 31/03/2025

Is your SEO Product Management program running as smoothly as it can be? 🤔 This survey from @sitebulb.com and @thegray.company will help you: ✅ Self-assess your current program's performance ✅ Define key gaps for improvement ✅ Take your program to the next level 🌟 Survey link in the comments ⬇️

Six people meeting around a table in an office setting with the text "What we think we look like during an SEO sprint planning meeting."

One person sitting in an office thinking with the text "What we actually look like."

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 28/03/2025

Thanks to @storyblok.com, woke up this morning very confused as to why I was on Myspace.

Screenshot of a browser tab citing "My Spaces - "

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 26/03/2025

How does your SEO Product Management program measure up to your competition? 🤔 This comprehensive survey from @sitebulb.com and @thegray.company will help you find out and give you tips for improvement if needed! Take the survey now! ⬇️ 3h7wlgxbe40.typeform.com/to/ZZev0nZP

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 24/03/2025

I'm going to I/O! All thanks to the wonderful @johnmu.com, I'm fortunate enough to get to attend Google I/O this May. (I'm so excited!)

Screenshot of the Google I/O 2025 confirmation screen

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 20/03/2025

Master builder in the making? A Lego piano made by my daughter!

Creation from my kid, Ada: A baby grand piano made out of legos, with a minifig with long dark hair a white shirt and blue jeans playing the piano. In the background you an see clear plastic organizing tubs filled with multi-colored lego pieces.

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 11/03/2025

If the Chegg lawsuit piqued your interest, looks like a class action lawsuit equivalent against Google/AI is already in the works. I'd argue this is a _critical_ next step (context: lnkd.in/dZW-QwDu) H/T @ Brenna Lynne for this find. More from Mike: x.com/mountainweek...

Screenshot of a Twitter/X post from Mike Hardaker, @mountainweekly, with the following text: Just got email from Susman Godfrey!!! The attorneys representing Chegg.

Google we are collectively coming for you. Strength in numbers and stop letting "Google will search for you" that is not how this was ever supposed to work.

You're company is going downhill. For first time in decade Google is loosing share of voice in search well DUH people are pissed and not just publishers and SEO's. Even some of Google engineers favor Bing..... And we were told so at the Creator Summit "drink the koolaid event"

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 26/02/2025

Feeling rather... fighty today 🌶️

Scene from Newsies, featuring all the boys holding their papers while Christian Bale says "Headlines don't sell papes, Newsies sell papes."

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 24/02/2025

Looking at queries like "seo agency for SaaS" or eComm, or "seo for eCommerce, *aren't* spiking. Neither is the Top related query, "best SEO agency"

screenshot of google trends for the query "best seo agency" in the us over the last 5 years. there is no corresponding spike in traffic

screenshot of google trends for the query "saas seo agency" in the us over the last 5 years. there is no corresponding spike in traffic

screenshot of google trends for the query "seo for ecommerce" in the us over the last 5 years. there is no corresponding spike in traffic

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 24/02/2025

Before we celebrate the spike in interest in "SEO Agencies" on Google Trends.... check out the related topics and queries. Some fishy stuff is going on there, ya'll: - What do home warranty, flower delivery and CRM etc companies have to do with SEO? ...

Screenshot of page 2 of related queries to "SEO agency" for the US. Item 6 is CRM Monday, 7 is seo services primelis, 8 is flower delivery chicago proflowers, 9 is fba shipping rapid express freight, and 10 is professionsal seo agency primelis with a green check emoji

Screenshot of the Related Topics in Google Trends for the query
"seo agency" - with odd and related results in both

Screenshot of Google Trends for the query SEO Agency in the US over the last 5 years. Traffic is apparently spiking up the highest it's been since late 2021/early 2022

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 13/02/2025

Y'all, if I was going to spam you with obviously AI generated backlink requests - don't you think I'd spell my OWN NAME CORRECTLY in my email address?! h/t to Callum Pinkney for this terrible, terrible find 😆

Screenshot of an AI generated link spam email from a faker

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 11/02/2025

Suddenly younger and blonder and cooler than ever before!

Screenshot of Google results for the query "Tory Gray", showing an x.com account with a Lily Ray preview image

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 10/12/2024

Yep. And eventually, I get this error - so there is some redirect weirdness

Screenshot of GSC "err_too_many_redirects" error

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 10/12/2024

No answers. It's still happening! I can replicate in Incognito, and @sam.thegray.co replicated from her device. Not happening with all accounts, just some. We're attempting to use the API as a workaround? I can confirm that the URLs aren't redirecting (e.g. these are from &num_of_months=6 v =16

Screenshot of GSC last 6 months performance data

Screenshot of GSC last 16 months performance data, featuring the same metrics as 6 months

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 10/12/2024

Hi @screamingfrog.co.uk! I feel like a bit of a crazy person, but I'm pretty sure ya'll are missing a definition of "missing" as an Hreflang error on your site: www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/i... Can I safely assume this means that those are pages not listed within hreflang?

Screenshot of the error filter tab in Screaming Frog in the Hreflang section, with "Missing" checked and highlighted

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 06/12/2024

Sorry, GSC! But also you are telling me that the metrics are the same at 16 mo as at 3 mo? And adding a page filter ballooned the clicks/impressions 4x? It's a buggy morning for Search Console...

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 05/12/2024

Ya'll the snow storm hasn't even *started* yet. Should be an interesting day!

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 01/12/2024

“Tory Gray’s feed is where existential dread meets actionable marketing tips”; “a mix of heartfelt community love and the occasional sarcastic jab at everything that’s gone wrong in the world.” Y’all I’ve never felt more seen?! (Via BlueSkyRoast.com)

Screenshot of Tory Gray’s BlueSkyRoast results. “Doomscrolling Queen with a side of SEO Magic!”, “Tory Gray’s feed is where existential dread meets actionable marketing tips”, “a mix of heartfelt community love and the occasional sarcastic jab at everything gone wrong the the world.”

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 28/11/2024

Happy (US) Thanksgiving everyone!

Snowy neighborhood scene with big trees lightly covered in snow.

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 24/11/2024

New spam type unlocked! 🫠 I… am not the target audience.

Spam email screenshot featuring pictures of Elon Musk, attempting to pitch advanced-tech heating devices under his name

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 15/11/2024

Spotted in Italy! Shoutout for Gray Dot Company and our SEO Airtable Template made by the amazing Alex Johnson. Big thanks to Marco Giordano for sharing! And Gus Pelogia for letting me know/sharing this picture. Love y’all 🥹 (thegray.company/blog/airtabl..., if you wanna check it out)

Photo of a presentation at a marketing concert from the crowd. Marco is presenting on SEO/Analytics, and this slide features a link to a Gray Dot resource: SEO Airtable Template

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Tory Gray @tory.thegray.co · 14/11/2024

One way I'm coping? Controlling the controllable. AKA: me. With this chaotic world (that's, frankly, even darker than I wanted to admit to myself as of late) I needed a way to organize my thoughts around all the many things we need to do to fight back. Right now I have two main plans:

Screenshot of a Google Sheet with columns Month, Theme, Holiday and Sub-themes, with organized notes on causes to support

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