🐹 Hamsterdam Part 110: Weekly SEO & AI News Recap (8/2 to 8/8, 2025)
By Ethan Lazuk
Last updated:
A weekly look-back at SEO & AI news, tips, and other content shared on social media & beyond.
Opening notes, thoughts, and musings:
- Welcome to another new week of Hamsterdam! 🐹
- I appreciate you being here, and look forward to sharing the week’s news! 🙌
- Special thanks to Danny Sullivan for his time as Search Liaison.
If you’re in a rush, hop down to the news portion. 📰
Or continue reading for two vocabulary lessons plus an introduction.
And we’re off …
🧑💻 Marketing word of the week: “Owned media”
Owned media refers to any marketing channel or content that a brand controls. Examples include the company website and blog, email newsletters, or social media profiles.
Owned media is in contrast to paid media (ads) and earned media (press coverage, influencer mentions, etc.)
Traditionally, SEO has been focused on generating content that’s owned media, like a brand’s product pages and blog posts. However, in the realm of AI chatbots, earned media (third-party mentions) has become an arguably equal if not larger focus.
Tools like Profound breakdown the distribution of owned vs. earned media in terms of citations in AI chatbots, allowing us to strategize for where to create content versus trying to get mentions by third parties.
🤖 AI word of the week: “One-hot encoding”
One-hot encoding is a data preprocessing technique used in machine learning that converts categorical variables (like labels, words, or categories) into a binary format that algorithms can understand.
Rather than representing a category as a single number, one-hot encoding turns each category into a vector where the position representing the category is marked as 1 and all other positions are marked as 0.
One-hot encoding is important because ML models work with numbers, not words. This technique ensures categories are treated equally and algorithms can interpret the data correctly.
One-hot encoding was a crucial stepping stone to more modern word embeddings used by search engines (such as Word2Vec or BERT).
😊 Introduction to week 110: “Thanks Search Liaison”
This week the Google Search Liaison X account was deactivated and Danny Sullivan stepped down from the position.
I just wanted to extend my thanks to Danny for his time in that role.
I saw Danny speak at BrightonSEO a few years ago and found him to be a knowledgeable and honest person.
I learned a lot from his posts and conversations on social media as the Search Liaison, and even quoted him quite a bit in my blog.
Wishing you the best in your future endeavors, Danny.
Thank you for supporting Hamsterdam and the cause of SEO & AI learning. 🙏
Enjoy the vibes:
Missed last week? Don’t worry, I got you! Read Part 109 to catch up.
🌟 Other great sources of weekly SEO news:
- The SEO Weekly – Garret Sussman, iPullRank
- SEOFOMO – Aleyda Solis
- Weekly Video Recaps – Barry Schwartz, SER
- Weekly SEO News YouTube channel – Olga Zarr, Seosly
- Niche Surfer – Yoyao Hsueh
Time for our weekly review of SEO social posts, articles, & more …
Now, let’s step inside the white flags of Hamsterdam …
⏩ Jump to a section:
- News, Google updates, & SERP tests
- SEO tips & tidbits
- Fundamentals & resources
- Articles, videos & case studies
- Local SEO
- Technical SEO
- Content marketing
- Local SEO
- Data analysis & reporting
- AI, LLMS, & machine learning
- Miscellaneous & general posts
- Older stuff that’s good!
Or keep scrolling to see it all. ⏬
📰 SEO news, Google updates, SERP tests & notable posts
Notable updates or news related to Google Search or related SEO topics.
🍟 SEO tips & tidbits
Actionable tips, cool tidbits, and other snackable findings and observations that can be teaching moments.
Essential information, concepts, or resources to learn about SEO or AI.
Longer-form content pieces shared on social, in newsletters, and elsewhere.
🧑💻 Technical SEO
Everything from basics to advanced moves (and also tools).
>>Check back next week!
✍️ Content marketing
From what is helpful content to user journeys and beyond.
📍 Local SEO
From Google Business Profiles to reviews and more!
📊 Data analysis & reporting
Showing that what you’re doing is helping.
🤖 AI, machine learning, & LLMs
News related to models, papers, and companies.
🤔 General marketing & miscellaneous
This is for great content that isn’t necessarily SEO or marketing-specific. PPC, PR, dev, design, and social friends, check it out!
💎 Older stuff that’s good!
Not everything I find worth sharing is new as of this week, so these are gems I came across published in the past.
Great job making it to the end. You rock! 🪨
Let’s connect!
Hit me up anytime via text or call at 813-557-9745 or on social or email:
Cheers! ✌️
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