🐹 Hamsterdam Part 140: Weekly SEO/GEO News Recap (8/8 to 8/14, 2026)

By Ethan Lazuk

Last updated:

August 14, 2026

A weekly look-back at SEO/GEO news, tips, and other content shared on social media & beyond.

Opening notes, thoughts, and musings:

Welcome to another week of Hamsterdam! 🐹 If you’re new here, this is a weekly summary of SEO/GEO news and tips shared on social media.
Check out my latest blog posts from the past week:
I appreciate you being here, and look forward to sharing the week’s SEO/GEO news! 🙌

If you’re in a rush, hop down to the news portion. 📰

I’m in a hurry. Take me to the news! 👇

Or continue reading for two vocabulary lessons plus an introduction.

And we’re off …

🧑‍💻 Marketing word of the week: “Positioning”

Positioning is how a brand establishes a distinct place in the minds of its target audience.

Source: Jaro Education

Strong positioning makes it clear who a brand is for, what they offer, and what differentiates them from alternatives.

In terms of SEO/GEO, positioning influences the topics a brand is associated with, the language people use to describe it, and ultimately how search engines and AI assistants understand the brand.

More Hamsterdam Marketing

🤖 AI word of the week: “Grounding”

Grounding gives an AI model additional information to base its answer on, such as webpages, documents, databases, or search results.

Source: Miquido

The goal of grounding is to make responses more relevant and verifiable and less likely to contain unsupported claims.

Grounding is especially relevant to AI search and GEO because brands want their content to become part of the information (the sources) AI assistants retrieve and use when generating answers.

More Hamsterdam Research

✌️Introduction to week 140: “Officially a New Yorker”

I can now officially consider myself a New Yorker, at least as a consultant.

Sure I felt like one when I got my driver’s license updated, rented an apartment in northeast Midtown, or registered my LLC, but the other day I got the type of confirmation that an SEO/GEO professional longs for — an AI Overview mention:

The sources pulled in included this NYC consulting page I made as well as my LinkedIn Profile. A good reminder to optimize your brand’s presence everywhere on the web, not just your own website.

Anyway, it was a proud moment for me, so I wanted to document it. 🙂

Thank you for supporting Hamsterdam and the cause of SEO/GEO learning. 🙏

Enjoy the vibes:

Missed last week? Don’t worry, I got you! Read Part 139 to catch up.

🌟 Other great sources of weekly SEO/GEO 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
Core Updates – Mark Williams-Cook, Candour Agency Ltd.

Time for our weekly review of SEO/GEO social posts, articles, & more …

Now, let’s step inside the white flags of Hamsterdam …

Or keep scrolling to see it all. ⏬

📰 SEO/GEO news, Google updates, SERP tests & notable posts

Notable updates or news related to Google Search or related SEO topics.

Meta/Facebook is crawling the web and may be building its own search engine for AI purposes says @levels.io http://www.seroundtable.com/meta-faceboo… hat tip @menachemani.bsky.social #meta #facebook #search #ai
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-10T11:51:46.945Z

Google lowers susbcriber/follower count requirements for Google Search Profiles from 100k to 35k (except for TikTok) http://www.seroundtable.com/google-searc… #google #googlesearchprofiles
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-13T11:41:51.160Z

Yelp going all in -> Yelp Brings Reservations and Waitlist to ChatGPT, allowing people to book a table or join a waitlist through Yelp—all without leaving their chat

"This builds on our existing content integration, which provides ChatGPT users with reliable local… pic.twitter.com/opSh3mQyPg
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 10, 2026

🤖 Claude will start marking AI generated content by adding an imperceptible watermark directly into the text itself as part of @AnthropicAI commitments after signing the EU AI Act's Article 50(2) Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content 👇

* Claude models… pic.twitter.com/dPyZgr2X7Z
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) August 11, 2026

Ecommerce SEO: Google is bringing back its "add to cart" links within free product listing results.

This is in conjunction with UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol), where you're often able to see 3 distinct links that show on free listings:

1. Visit site: linking directly to the… pic.twitter.com/bPZaYz1AQ3
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) August 13, 2026

knowledge panels in AI Mode also showing Search profile now #SEO 👀 pic.twitter.com/mmkkaC3aXR
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) August 13, 2026

🍟 SEO tips & tidbits

Actionable tips, cool tidbits, and other snackable findings and observations that can be teaching moments.

I surveyed practitioners on AI visibility/GEO platforms.Survey says: The data is valuable. The platforms aren’t trusted.Trust was the #1 objection. Price was 6th. People have money, they lack faith.duaneforresterdecodes.substack.com/p/the-geo-to…
— Duane Forrester (@duaneforrester.bsky.social) 2026-08-09T13:45:01.371Z

Good thread about why Google might be testing those 'goto' links in the SERPs (which I shared about the other day). The redirects have been tested over the past few weeks. Viktor explains why this could be a very bad sign for third-parties scraping Google (tools/AI companies).x.com/glenngabe/st…
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe.bsky.social) 2026-08-09T13:10:01.339Z

Dani Leitner (@DanielaLeitner2) recommends thoroughly reviewing your online footprint (including mentions and backlinks) to understand what information AI is accessing about your company and address any outdated or undesirable content.https://t.co/8PZsDZhOnc pic.twitter.com/ubaTyS5OBb
— Majestic (@Majestic) August 11, 2026

I SHOWED YOU HOW THE MODELS DECIDE WHO GETS CITED – NOW HERE'S HOW TO FIND OUT IF THEY'RE ACTUALLY GOING TO PICK YOU OR YOUR COMPETITORS 🚨

This is FREE and only takes about 10 MINUTES…

STEP 1 – Pick the FIGHT

Choose one query that actually matters commercially: e.g. X… https://t.co/Z3OPedljAh pic.twitter.com/uHupzsUtFg
— Charles Floate 📈 (@Charles_SEO) August 12, 2026

Pro-tip: with ChatGPT adding "official" to many more fan-out queries, it's a good time to consider whether adding "Official" makes sense to things like official brand homepage <title> tags (e.g. "Official Site"). Or even other page <title> templates or meta descriptions, if…
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 11, 2026

I'm worried that citation analysis research is misleading us… badly.

AI tools often already know which brands they're going to search for and recommend, so looking at the sources or URLs ain't gonna help you much. Full report: https://t.co/lpoS9q7Bfp pic.twitter.com/wZrPtucp76
— Rand Fishkin (follow @randderuiter on Threads) (@randfish) August 12, 2026

The snake oil in how third party AI citations are being sold: for most brands it’s a quality game, not a quantity game.

In evaluating clients across dozens of competitive verticals, where there are often pay-to-play, affiliate-type opportunities that exist, the number of said… pic.twitter.com/I3tkBXrpWi
— Ross Hudgens (@RossHudgens) August 12, 2026

Here's why having 10, 20, 40, 50 Claude Agents to do your SEO does not work.

1. Claude is INCAPABLE of crawling large websites

➪ Website crawls can take up multiple GB

➪ Claude cannot cope with site crawls

➪ A lot of sites will block or restrict unregulated requests

2.… pic.twitter.com/NvuRqWujlt
— Daniel Foley Carter (@foley_seo) August 14, 2026

🦕 SEO (and AI) fundamentals & resources

Essential information, concepts, or resources to learn about SEO or AI.

📹 How to Communicate and Sell AI Search Optimization (GEO, AEO, LLMO) to Decision Makers 👇In the 4th episode of the AI Search Roadmap series I go through it with @pelogia.bsky.social @yagmursimsek.bsky.social Adelle Kehoe. Watch it in full now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w40g…
— Aleyda Solis (@aleyda.bsky.social) 2026-08-08T18:27:18.908Z

Every client call I'm on ends with the exact same question.

"What should we actually do to win in LLMs?"

Here are the 15 tips I share with them. https://t.co/iEQWq7dI0O
— Suganthan Mohanadasan (@suganthan) August 11, 2026

What would you do if LLMs were getting your brand wrong? The @SERanking / @PlanableApp team asked me! Here's my answer:

First, I’d identify which sources may be supporting the wrong answer. Our own pages? Maybe we weren’t clear or are contradicting ourselves. Third-party… pic.twitter.com/f9akKtwCSL
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) August 13, 2026

If we have to have many acronyms:

👉 GEO is about being present in the training data, as well as proper positioning there
👉 SEO is about being findable in traditional search (Google, Bing, Brave Search)
👉 AEO is about easy and clear answer extractability (on-site)

I know it… pic.twitter.com/PtVhhaoEnf
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) August 13, 2026

📚 Articles, videos, case studies & more

Longer-form content pieces shared on social, in newsletters, and elsewhere.

The Evolution of SEO: a quick walk down memory lanehttps://t.co/x8put6xXpY pic.twitter.com/wKo0vzajlP
— David G Quaid (SEO) (@DavidGQuaid) August 11, 2026

https://t.co/dCSqg1tAEK
— Gaetano DiNardi (@gaetano_nyc) August 11, 2026

LLM Consensus: What Most AI Visibility Strategies Are Missing https://t.co/txDKbQwqJn
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) August 11, 2026

My 3rd SEO Case Study with @sengineland is published.

My third case study for @sengineland is now live, featuring examples from multiple websites.

There are two primary ways to build authority signals that can help trigger NavBoost through semantics, user interaction data,…
— Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR (@KorayGubur) August 12, 2026

🧑‍💻 Technical SEO

Everything from basics to advanced moves (and also tools).

Google's @methode.bsky.social said hreflang alternate URLs are not indexed in the proper sense http://www.seroundtable.com/google-hrefl…#google #seo #googleseo #hreflang
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-10T11:31:08.360Z

Well, I recently surfaced that problem again for a new client. The www version of the site was disallowing all bots, including Googlebot obviously. Unfortunately, GSC will not flag an issue there. You need to dig in and check it out. Check your site today in case you aren't sure…
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe.bsky.social) 2026-08-11T12:38:00.394Z

Misconfiguring Cloudflare can hurt your SEO badly http://www.seroundtable.com/misconfigure… hat tip @glenngabe.bsky.social @brodieclark.bsky.social Jonathan Bird #cloudflare #seo #googleseo #googlebot
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-13T11:21:24.284Z

Why does Google sometimes show spammy sites for the Google-selected canonical in the URL Inspection Tool? http://www.seroundtable.com/spammy-googl… via @johnmu.com @dan-lauer22.bsky.social #google #seo #googleseo #googlesearchconsole #googleurlspectiontool
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-13T11:11:48.266Z

SEO Tip!

Changing domains can seem like a good idea, and, if done properly they CAN be relatively uneventful, but, they DO carry a high risk of things going wrong.

Here are some things to consider before you change a domain.

1. Ask why you are changing the domain, is it… pic.twitter.com/9QdFVFsVw6
— Daniel Foley Carter (@foley_seo) August 10, 2026

Technical SEO Tip: You can query Wayback Machine's API to get a list EVERY SINGLE historical URL for a given website.

Here's the process: pic.twitter.com/cPL7Gxm5rQ
— Chris Long (@chris_nectiv) August 12, 2026

Inorganic Link Detection Algorithm
Let us catch your bad links before Google does.https://t.co/9opzz0GLKj
Enter a URL or paste an article that links to you. We'll tell you if we spot a manipulative SEO link on it. If our tool flags your link, so will Google. pic.twitter.com/KCjlHbrpYZ
— DEJAN (@dejanseo) August 13, 2026

Here you go: https://t.co/IbnLvV5mA1
Not tested in the wild yet, but feel free.
— DEJAN (@dejanseo) August 13, 2026

✍️ Content marketing

From what is helpful content to user journeys and beyond.

When is actually reasonable to leverage AI to create content? The criteria relies on what scenarios actually benefit from an automated approach due to the scale or complexity of the content type/format *while* keeping the pages information quality, uniqueness/originality,… pic.twitter.com/av7DbLgdTm
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) August 12, 2026

Basic AI optimization tip: position your company by nailing your brand facts

e.g., [Brand] is a [product] targeting [customer], good at [problem] because of [differentiator]

Do AI systems know *exactly* what you do by reading your home/about/product pages? Make it easy for them pic.twitter.com/OKoSAjkxTF
— Cyrus SEO (@CyrusShepard) August 12, 2026

David (@DavidGQuaid) is RIGHT!!! The most USELESS advice in SEO (and ESPECIALLY AI SEO) is "just write quality content."

It sounds helpful, it commits to nothing, it is the professional equivalent of telling someone to be themselves before a job interview.

And it has become… pic.twitter.com/bE8j1mK6IA
— Charles Floate 📈 (@Charles_SEO) August 13, 2026

A short story: pic.twitter.com/J5ixA0wFjV
— Harpreet (@harpreetchatha_) August 13, 2026

📍 Local SEO/GEO

From Google Business Profiles to reviews and more!

📊 Data analysis & reporting

Showing that what you’re doing is helping.

Google announced that its Ask Advisor AI agent will compare campaign performance in Google Analytics against anonymized averages from similar businesses. via @mattgsouthern.bsky.social#seonews #Google #GoogleAnalytics #GA4
— Search Engine Journal (@sejournal.bsky.social) 2026-08-10T14:33:14+00:00

AI Overviews may be quietly eating your clicks. Here's how to prove it in Search Console, and which keywords are worth fighting for.
— Search Engine Journal (@sejournal.bsky.social) 2026-08-13T12:03:29+00:00

OH man preston dropped these 11 and it actually got my brain going on a bunch of new AI KPIs.

Here are the 11 metrics I wish I’d started tracking sooner, framed as questions:
1. Are branded organic searches growing faster than revenue?
2. Are contribution dollars and… pic.twitter.com/L9J4HTXSR6
— Wil Reynolds (@wilreynolds) August 13, 2026

🤖 AI, machine learning, & LLMs

News related to models, papers, and companies.

OpenAI makes the sources link in ChatGPT much less visible – not a good thing unless you are an advertiser… http://www.seroundtable.com/openai-chatg… via @glenngabe.bsky.social #openai #chatgpt
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-13T11:31:32.974Z

For 3 years now, we haven't had a way to get any first-hand/official insight into how our average target customer may be prompting AI platforms, like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.

It was recently noticed and confirmed that AI Mode records those prompts as queries in the… pic.twitter.com/Mi4QobhP5P
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) August 8, 2026

A few days ago I posted ChatGPT naming its "likely shortlist" in the Activity panel before it searched. That post picked up a lot of feedback, and it deserved a fuller answer than a screenshot.

The full study is now live. Two months of reading ChatGPT's network traffic, 60… pic.twitter.com/diT1FZCh5D
— Suganthan Mohanadasan (@suganthan) August 10, 2026

“The free [ChatGPT] tier does not reason. Across our 493 free-tier answers, not a single one went into thinking mode. And instant settles for a single fan-out in more than eight cases out of ten, and never opens a page to read it.”

👀👀 and that’s the one used by 90% of ChatGPT…
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 10, 2026

🚨 GPT-5.6 is now ChatGPT’s default model.

If you’ve noticed unusual fluctuations in Brand Visibility, retrieved domains, or citations over the past few days, there is a good reason.

GPT-5.6 is not simply answering differently. It is researching differently.

Here are some of…
— David Konitzny (@DavidKonitzny) August 10, 2026

The weight of third-party AI citations shows how both social media and digital PR are needed, although their relative importance change by vertical and platform:

* SaaS is primarily social and community-led
* Ecommerce is competitor and marketplace-led
* Finance has the… pic.twitter.com/3sVtw5R6VG
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) August 10, 2026

“Yes, go on.” 👀

That query is sitting in Google Search Console right now.

Along with “sure”, “really?”, “show me”, “what about Gemini?” and thousands of other fragments that look suspiciously like pieces of AI conversations.

Google’s new Generative AI report gives you no… pic.twitter.com/6BnyC6a6AU
— Suganthan Mohanadasan (@suganthan) August 13, 2026

Full article here from @dejanseo: https://t.co/qYG9RzEHi3
— Chris Long (@chris_nectiv) August 13, 2026

New SEO Research: ChatGPT dramatically changed its fan-out queries.

ChatGPT searches have TRIPLED + it evaluates more authoritative sources: https://t.co/Qd15dqnyFQ pic.twitter.com/r1mwrEwNet
— Chris Long (@chris_nectiv) August 14, 2026

Every since Barry's post last week about AI Mode queries surfacing in GSC, I started thinking about a cleaner way to get more of that data (along with urls being cited). You can read my post to accomplish this today. Brace yourself, there are some wild prompts in there 🙂 -> How… pic.twitter.com/Kkc1nxig91
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 13, 2026

Gemini 3.7 Flash is noticeably better at web design.

I asked both 3.6 Flash and 3.7 Flash to take a stab at reimagining my WordPress site into an Astro based theme.

3.7 Flash took 56 seconds to design the full homepage. pic.twitter.com/rUQXpxh2iR
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) August 13, 2026

🤔 General marketing & miscellaneous

This is for great content that isn’t necessarily SEO/GEO specific.

ChatGPT Ads with descriptive headlines above the ads http://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-ads-… via @serpalert.bsky.social #chatgpt #chatgptads #openai #ppc
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) 2026-08-12T11:11:15.473Z

More ChatGPT Ads data -> ChatGPT ads appear on 26% of commercial prompts, only 3.63% of advertisers were also cited as a source in the answer above their ad

And for YMYL: ChatGPT also showed substantially more ads around some YMYL topics than Google’s AI Mode. Ads appeared on… pic.twitter.com/0nphEuBipl
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2026

Let’s connect!

Hit me up anytime via text or call at 813-557-9745 or on social or email:

Cheers! ✌️

🐹 Hamsterdam Part 140: Weekly SEO/GEO News Recap (8/8 to 8/14, 2026)

🧑‍💻 Marketing word of the week: “Positioning”

🤖 AI word of the week: “Grounding”

✌️Introduction to week 140: “Officially a New Yorker”

🌟 Other great sources of weekly SEO/GEO news:

Time for our weekly review of SEO/GEO social posts, articles, & more …

⏩ Jump to a section:

📰 SEO/GEO news, Google updates, SERP tests & notable posts

🍟 SEO tips & tidbits

🦕 SEO (and AI) fundamentals & resources

📚 Articles, videos, case studies & more

🧑‍💻 Technical SEO

✍️ Content marketing

📍 Local SEO/GEO

📊 Data analysis & reporting

🤖 AI, machine learning, & LLMs

🤔 General marketing & miscellaneous

Past recaps

🐹 Hamsterdam Part 139: Weekly SEO/GEO News Recap (8/1 to 8/7, 2026)

🐹 Hamsterdam Part 138: Weekly SEO/GEO News Recap (7/25 to 7/31, 2026)

🐹 Hamsterdam Part 137: Weekly SEO/GEO News Recap (7/18 to 7/24, 2026)

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