Hamsterdam Part 39: SEO News Recap from 1/1 to 1/7, 2024
By Ethan Lazuk
Last updated:
A weekly look-back at SEO news, tips, and other content shared on social media & beyond.
Quote source: Google Search Central
Opening notes:
Welcome to 2024 and the first Hamsterdam SEO recap of the new year! 🙂
As promised in last week’s recap, we’re officially back on ethanlazuk.com!
I’m in the process of recovering all of the historical SEO news recaps. Some are likely lost for good — a lot of copy-pasting and 301 redirects in the last few days; I’ve even created a custom soft 404 page 😉 — but the originals will be at their original URLs.
The newsletter is back in action, as well! You can sign up with your email. I’m using MailPoet this time, and it had a lot of rules and legal stuff during signup, so I’m guessing it’s solid. 😉
*Feel free to jump down to the recap, or keep reading for an introduction and summary of the week’s news!
Introduction to week 39: A new hope
Hamsterdam SEO news recaps began in April 2023 as The Twitter Files.
Here’s the original tweet that marked the idea:
I remember writing that tweet. It was pretty late at night. I was sitting in our bedroom at our rental house in South Tampa. I believe I was just at the tail-end of leaving one agency job for another.
You can read the fuller story about Hamsterdam on the main page, but essentially, these recaps started out as personal reference materials and then developed into something worth sharing!
Tricky client question? There’s likely a tweet to answer that or reaffirm your recommendation.
Need historical context during a Google feature change or ranking system update, like the HCU in September 2023? Scrolling through recaps from that time period can paint a clearer picture.
Want to find an article where you know when it was published but it’s not surfacing in search results? It’s likely in a recap.
It can also be interesting to look at timelines of events in retrospect.
For example, when Google Search Central released its spam webpages form, that was two days before it announced the search engine’s stance on AI-generated content, and then Danny Sullivan reminded everyone about the helpful content guidance:
In the early days of these recaps, I mainly copy-pasted all of my liked tweets in a blog post and called it a day.
But as time went on, I started filtering the best posts and adding introductions.
Two of my favorite introductions recently are Part 31 (brightonSEO edition) and Part 36 (negative comments). I also restored Part 1 (the beginning) this week with a new introduction.
Why did I need to restore these recaps?
Well, two days before the Christmas holiday, my website was hacked and erased. I didn’t have a backup because I was using a managed WordPress hosting company that was doing that for me.
Unfortunately, that company left me high and dry.
If you’re interested in the full story, I wrote about how the hack happened and my response in this blog post.
My Google Search traffic is actually up since I restored the website, and that’s with the site still not showing a favicon yet. However, I lost all Discover traffic, for now.
Similar to my analysis in Part 36 about negative comments, I wanted to understand the mindset of someone who hacks a website.
After all, my site was basically just erased and left as a blank white screen for 10+ days.
I have found some evidence of shadiness:
But honestly, what was the point of it all?
I wanted to understand.
So, I turned to Google Search, as I’m prone to do, looking for answers to why hacks happen.
I mainly just found information about how they happen.
Ok, that’s helpful.
But if you know my philosophy on creating content for SEO, I believe it starts with putting yourself in the shoes of the user, whether it’s for webpages or other types of content, like for Google’s Perspectives filter.
Just as we need to understand the needs of our users to create a proper technical website experience and UX for them, or their particular search intent to properly build content for their user journey, I believe to protect your site from hackers, you need to look beyond “how” they attacked your site and understand the “mentality” behind it.
That’s when I came across a recent November 2023 article from UC Santa Cruz’s Information Technology Services department — BTW, anyone remember this Pulp Fiction scene:
— called The Psychology of Hackers.
Bingo!
The article lists a few potential theories of motivation for hacking, but this “depersonalized obedience” one stood out:
“Depersonalized obedience means that hackers can act without thinking about the consequences because they feel detached from the real world when they’re committing cybercrimes. This detachment also happens because they don’t see the people they affect in person. For some hackers, they may focus on their cause and ignore the harm they cause others.” [Highlights added.]
– The Psychology of Hackers, ITS News, UC Santa Cruz
This was very much the same rationale for why people leave negative comments.
The hacker didn’t consider the hundreds of hours I put into the website, including the long hours spent every evening and weekend creating content or making tweaks to things. They probably didn’t think about me at all.
I don’t know if there’s a solution for that.
But I do know I can control how I respond — it’s by turning that misfortunate into motivation!
In the short run, yes, this was a setback for a couple of weeks. No big deal.
In the long run, I learned some valuable lessons and wound up with a new website for taking the next steps in my professional career as an SEO consultant in 2024 and beyond — a new hope, if you will.
This feeling of detachment isn’t limited to hackers or negative commenters, though.
Many of us also fall into this habit without realizing it while doing SEO or digital marketing.
How many times, as an SEO, have we been asked, “Is this good for SEO?”
Well, there’s an easy answer: if it’s good for your users, it’s likely good for SEO.
Is that true in every situation or search result? Of course not.
But anyone tracking the rankings volatility throughout 2023, particularly after the September HCU, knows we’re on a fast track for change.
That was the theme of last week’s recap with the quote from Microsoft’s CEO about new incentives for SEO content.
New search competitors are also emerging, and they have their sights on “SEO spam”:
That’s a word I hear often nowadays: “spam.”
There’s often a naive association made between people gunking up the search results with overly optimized, impersonal, and generic content built for ranking purposes and quality SEO content built for helping people during their digital user journeys.
Spam is not SEO. It’s search engine-first content and always has been.
Modern SEO is a complex and all-encompassing digital marketing channel.
It starts with a technically sound website, builds a corpus of helpful content to satisfy audiences along their buyer’s journey, and reaches into new frontiers of organic visibility on Search surfaces to increase brand awareness, trust, and credibility far beyond keyword rankings.
Would users click on those paid search ads or social ads or sign up for those email flows like they do if they didn’t trust the brand after reading its content or seeing its organic visibility on Search, including in generative-AI snapshots?
To those still trying to optimize for keyword rankings, fixating on competitors and gap analyses, or trying to do SEO and attribute its ROI in isolation from other digital and offline marketing channels, I wish you good luck.
I’ll be helping clients build for the future. And probably finding a good hosting company known for its security. 😉
Thanks so much for supporting Hamsterdam recaps! I wish you the happiest of new years and a successful start to 2024.
Buckle up for a full week’s recap below, and enjoy the vibes (and the bonus track at the end):
Summary of the week’s SEO news and content
- John Mueller gave a list of the top trends from 2023, including technical SEO, search algorithms (and updates), AI and machine learning, and structured data.
- OpenAI announced the GPT Store will launch next week.
- Perplexity AI search engine raised $73.6 million in Series B funding from some notable investors, and the CEO called out “SEO spam.”
But don’t just take my word for it! All of this info and more is below in the weekly recap.
Notes:
- If the article times out on mobile, my apologies. Please try viewing on a desktop or WiFi.
- If you’d like to see more, scrolling through my likes on X or following the people in this recap is probably the best place to start. 😉
Missed last week’s recap? Don’t worry, I got you! Read Part 38 to catch up.
Okay, time for (home)work.
Jump to a section of this week’s recap
- Top posts
- News, Google updates, & SERP tests
- SEO tips & tidbits
- Fundamentals & resources
- Articles, videos & case studies
- Local SEO
- Technical SEO
- Content marketing
- SEO tools, AI & reporting
- Humor section
- Miscellaneous & general posts
Enjoy the recap below! And please support content you find valuable with a like or follow. 🙂
Top posts
These are key news items, tips, or other content I felt were relevant to highlight for the week, particularly if you just want a quick glance.
SEO news, Google updates, & SERP tests
These are newsworthy events in the SEO world from the last week or SERP tests to be aware of.
SEO tips & tidbits
This section has actionable tips, cool tidbits, or other findings and observations that can be teaching moments.
SEO fundamentals & resources
If you’re new to SEO, this section includes essential information, concepts, or resources to learn more about.
Articles, videos, case studies & more
These are longer-form content shared on social.
Local SEO
If you’re into local Search, this section is for you!
Technical SEO
Yep, it matters. 😉
Content marketing
What’d SEO be without content?
Tools, AI & reporting
Here’s a recap of AI news, updates to SEO tools, new tools, along with tips for reporting on data.
Humor
Humor is subjective; these are funny!
General Marketing & Miscellaneous
This is for great content that isn’t necessarily SEO (i.e., PPC, PR, dev, design, and social friends, check it out!) or even marketing-specific.
Great job making it to the end. You rock!
Here’s a bonus track for your enjoyment:
Show your support for creators: If you liked any of the content shared above, please support that person by liking their post or following them. 🙂
Hungry for more? Check out the past weeks of Hamsterdam.
Or sign up for the newsletter!
Want to work together on your brand’s SEO?
I’m currently taking clients for SEO and content audits and strategy consulting, and soon training. You can learn more about me on my about page.
Get in touch: hit me up on social at @EthanLazuk, by text or call at 813-557-9745, or via email at ethan.lazuk@gmail.com.
Cheers!
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