🐹 Hamsterdam Part 116: Weekly SEO & AI News Recap (9/19 to 9/26, 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! 🙌
- Spam update is done. Hopefully, you’ve stayed safe. 😉
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: “Unique selling proposition”
A unique selling proposition, or USP, is the core idea that makes your product, service, or brand different from (or better than) your competition. In short, it’s the clear reason a customer should choose you over any others.
Key features of a USP are that a brand, service, or product is unique, has a clear and immediate benefit, is relevant to the customer, and is defensible, meaning it’s something you can actually deliver and sustain.
Why does a USP matter to marketing? It guides positioning and branding, shapes advertising messages (like taglines or campaigns), and helps focus product development on the qualities that matter most to customers. A USP also differentiates you in a crowded market, where features and pricing can blur together.
🤖 AI word of the week: “Unsupervised learning”
Unsupervised learning is a type of machine learning (ML) where the system works with unlabeled data. In contrast with supervised learning (which uses input-output pairs to train on correct answers) unsupervised algorithms try to group similar data points (clustering), find hidden structures, and detect patterns without predefined categories.
Search engines deal with massive unlabeled datasets like webpages, text, images, and queries. Google groups similar searches without labels, so it can better serve results. There’s also topic modeling, which uses unsupervised methods to find topics in content to improve how results are categorized. Another use case is user behavior analysis, or grouping users with similar search behaviors for personalization.
😊 Introduction to week 116: “We’ve returned”
Hamsterdam is back after a 1 week hiatus. I was in NYC for the US Search Awards dinner.
Visiting NYC (as well as upstate NY) was a great experience.
Here are some photos from the trip:
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 115 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).
✍️ 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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