Ethan Lazuk

SEO & marketing professional.

Hamsterdam Part 56: Weekly SEO & AI News Recap (4/29 to 5/5, 2024)

By Ethan Lazuk

Last updated:

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

Hamsterdam Part 56 Weekly SEO News Recap with Duane Forrester Quote.
Source: Duane Forrester

Opening notes:

The Value to Time Ratio for Helpful Content.

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*Feel free to jump down to this week’s recap, or continue reading for “This week in SEO history,” an introduction, and a summary of the week’s SEO and AI news!

This week in SEO history: first mention of “search engine optimization”

In May of 1997, the first known mention of “search engine optimization” occurred in a meta tag for content on Search Engine Watch.

This was according to Danny Sullivan — currently Google’s Search Liaison — who shared that insight in the SEW Forums in June of 2004.

The news was also covered by Barry Schwartz in Search Engine Roundtable. Here’s how it appeared then:

History of the Term Search Engine Optimization on Search Engine Roundtable circa 2004.

The link to Danny’s post now redirects to a SEW article about content marketing ROI from 2016:

Redirect path for 2004 SEW forum answer.

WayBack Machine doesn’t read the URL, either.

And while I can visit the SEW Forums from 2004, I didn’t locate the exact post:

Search Engine Watch Forums circa 2004.

I’m also not certain of the date that first meta tag was used, just that it was this month.

Still, all things considered, it’s pretty incredible how “SEO” has endured as a term for 27 years, and likely will for many more.

Although, (technically) we’re optimizing for people who use search engines — and increasingly AI answer engines, chatbots, and assistants — and not search engines themselves; in theory, anyway. 🙂

More Hamsterdam History

Speaking of people, let’s get to our introduction this week …

A quick note, followed by a celebration of writing and artistry.

Introduction to week 56: “what matters”

Google painted butterfly.

Sometimes, popular topics feel distant to me.

Site reputation abuse is one of them.

I understand the problems of parasite SEO and barnacle SEO.

Still, I don’t recall ever in my life, neither as an agency-side SEO nor as an independent consultant today, going to a client and saying, “We’re being competed against by hustlers on a Harvard subdomain.”

I’ve no doubt that it’s a problem to some publishers and other businesses. It must be.

But to me, it gives spam problem vibes — what I mean is that most of that spam I saw, which was prevalent, for sure, was still on page 3+.

Sometimes, the loudest problems discussed in SEO have the least direct impact on the strategies I work on for businesses.

A more prominent example was the helpful content update.

I just reframed my refreshed 11x content post around it, because it’s a huge topic — but it still didn’t really impact any businesses I worked with, then or now.

Sure, I knew friends and colleagues with side projects who were hit, but not any clients.

Core updates, now those can matter.

I typically look forward to them after I’ve been working with a site for a while, but I also sweat them when I just started working a client that’s had a lot of SEO work done previously. IYKYK.

Just because something is discussion fodder — case in point, core web vitals — doesn’t mean it connects to the real world needs of everyday businesses.

What most clients I work with want to know is, “Are we healthy? Are we sustaining and growing this business?”

Maybe the coming weeks will be full of reputation abuse hype and chatter, or maybe not.

Either way, energy is finite, and my advice is to focus on what matters to your situation.

After all, Google I/0 is around the corner …

Unless you’re an SEO nerd, then of course you’ll be obsessing over site reputation abuse news, particularly the distribution of algorithmic drops to manual actions. 😉

But to that point …

There’s another type of reputation abuse that we need to discuss — and that’s Kendrick Lamar.

You may recall in Hamsterdam Part 50, we featured the song Like That with his feature and included a lyrical breakdown.

This week, Kendrick put out three songs that further changed music and arguably society.

To be fair, I’m biased.

I have selective tastes in music, with favoritism toward writers, which applies to hip-hop artists.

Now, if you’re just catching up, what started (most recently, I mean) as a competitive battle between Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick has become something with deeper meaning.

I follow a lot of hip-hop content on TikTok. I’m also aware of the perspectives I have, or don’t have.

I’ve listened to a lot of people on this, though, and I think this video sums it up well:

@fridgehiphop Ok after this its back to breaking down the disses i promise #hiphop #drake #kdot #kendricklamar #616inla #euphoria ♬ original sound – Fridge

To catch up on Kendrick’s latest songs, you can start with Euphoria, then Not Like Us, and if you’re brave, try Meet the Grahams.

Google’s reputation abuse policies have got nothing on K-Dot. This man is phenomenal.

But getting beyond the news of the week — if you’re a fan of writers in general, you’ll be a fan of Kendrick’s.

Buckle up for a full week’s recap, and enjoy the un-killable vibes:

<Bonus interview material for the real ones./>

Thank you for supporting Hamsterdam and the cause of SEO & AI learning.

Missed last week? Don’t worry, I got you! Read Part 55 to catch up.

Other great sources of weekly SEO news:

Now, time for our weekly review of SEO social posts, articles, & more …

The Big Lebowski is this your homework Larry scene.

Quick summary

  • Congrats to Barry Schwartz on hitting 900 articles for Search Engine Land.
  • Google’s site reputation abuse policies take effect today.
  • Google didn’t lose the market share we initially (and skeptically) saw on StatCounter.
  • Duane Forrester did a great interview with Shelley Walsh for SEO Pioneers.
  • I spent too much time updating my 11x content article …
  • And much more! 🙂

Jump to a section of this week’s recap:

Or keep scrolling to see it all.

Ok, time to step inside the white flags of Hamsterdam …

Hamsterdam scene from The Wire with Carver pointing at the white flags.

SEO news, Google updates, & SERP tests

Notable updates or news related to Google Search or related topics SEOs care about.

This wasn’t the case, as Glenn points out below. Danny has an update on this, as well.

This is also a great note from Malte Landwehr, as reported in Garret Sussman’s (iPullRank) The Rank Report newsletter (May 5th):

The Rank Report newsletter with Matt Landwehr tweet.

SEO tips & tidbits

This section has actionable tips, cool tidbits, and other findings and observations that can be teaching moments.

SEO (and AI) fundamentals & resources

If you’re new to SEO, this section is for you and includes essential information, concepts, or resources to learn more.

Articles, videos, case studies & more

These are longer-form content pieces shared on social and elsewhere.

In Response To Google – Ed Zitron

In Response to Google Ed Zitron.
Excerpt: “Google can play semantics all it wants, but if changes were made to an algorithm that increased traffic to previously-suppressed sites, how does one interpret these changes as anything other than a rollback, especially when these sites were suppressed in previous updates?”

Breakouts during breaking news – Shelby Blackley, WTF is SEO?

Breakouts during breaking news - Shelby Blackley, WTF is SEO?
Excerpt: “Think about breakouts like branches in the tree analogy, as Claudio Cabrera previously laid out. The trunk of the tree is the news event — the main breaking news story. But the branches are the additional questions that arise after the initial news. The quicker you get to the supplementary pieces of coverage, the likelier you’re going to rank in Top Stories and win the event on search. You’re getting a head start by thinking about what readers are going to be searching for.”

Excerpt: “This point is overlooked most of the time, but extremely important: SGE shifts search from keywords to immersive user journeys and conversation. This means a challenge for keyword tracking and predicting people’s needs on various layers of the user journey.”

Excerpt: “The emphasis on search over other features is a strategic move by Meta to prioritize the most dynamic and essential aspect of online interaction. By focusing on enhancing the search experience, Meta AI is positioned to become an indispensable tool for users, providing them with immediate, accurate, and comprehensive search results. This focus on search not only meets the immediate information needs of users but also integrates seamlessly with their digital lives, making the Meta platforms even more central to their daily online interactions.”
Excerpt: “Site Migrations are not one thing, they are actually different scenarios and the only thing they have in common is that there is always something that can go wrong.”
Excerpt: “My traffic drop consultations became grief counseling sessions. I have had conversation after conversation with good, incredible creative and intelligent people who are at the end of their rope financially, mentally and physically. They’ve laid off staff. They are looking for jobs. They’re so worried about so many things.”
Excerpt: “Well, with the March 2024 core update, the helpful content system was baked into Google’s core ranking system and the old classifier was supposed to be retired. Instead, multiple systems in Google’s core ranking systems would now assess the helpfulness of content. This is where many got confused. Since the helpful content system is part of core now, it’s not some type of separate hit to rankings. Instead, it’s part of the overall calculation between systems that are part of Google’s core ranking system.”
Excerpt: “SEO doesn’t need to be as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. A lot of the nuance and the difference that you’re asking about is so subliminal and it’s so small that even if you score a 100 on that you’re not going to see a shift in ranking or traffic. Meanwhile, the whole concept of what it means to rank is changing dramatically with SGE, Gemini, ChatGPT, and everything else. Like what are you doing to make yourself useful in those environments.”
Excerpt: “One of the big worries for Google investors was the cost of running AI to show within its search results. The AI overviews, now AI answers are costly to run. But as expected, Google was able to reduce the cost to generate these AI Answers.”
Excerpt: “Analyzing the Google March 2024 core update difficult for many reasons. Even just understanding what happened in terms of the HCU and integration (or lack thereof) into the core is a whole basket of confusion for various reasons.”

Local SEO

If you’re into local Search, this section is for you.

Technical SEO

Everything from basics to advanced techniques.

Chris Long LinkedIn Post about Screaming Frog.
Article: Advanced Screaming Frog Crawling Tips and Use Cases for Ecommerce Auditing by Maria Camanes

Content marketing

From what is helpful content to user journeys and beyond.

Excerpt: “Google ask whether you add “original information, reporting, research, or analysis”. Most AI-based SEO Tools JUST scrape the top search results. That is not necessarily going to create anything new. Instead, it will just rehash what Google can already show its users.”

AI, machine learning, & LLMs

A section dedicated to artificial intelligence news, tips, and articles.

Excerpt: “The main idea behind TeraHAC is to identify a way to perform merges based solely on information local to the subgraphs, while guaranteeing that the merges can be reordered into an approximate merge sequence. The paradox rests in the fact that a cluster in some subgraph may make a merge that is far from being approximate. However, the merges satisfy a certain condition, which allows us to show that the final result of the algorithm is still the same as what a proper (1+ε)-approximate HAC algorithm would have computed.”

What it means: HAC is a well-known algorithm but it doesn’t work well for large datasets. The researchers, based on the concept that most real-world data is sparse — doesn’t have much connection to each other — to focus on comparing data most likely to be similar based on initial clues rather than against all other data. Search engines may use clustering algorithms to group similar webpages and understand their content, making this a useful concept for SEOs to understand.

Note: I wasn’t able to add a Hamsterdam Research article this week, but this will be our topic next week! (Most likely.)

Introducing the Claude Team plan and iOS app

Introducing Claude iOS app.
Excerpt: “In the coming weeks, we will be releasing additional collaboration features, including citations from reliable sources to verify AI-generated claims, integrations with data repositories like codebases or CRMs, and iterating with colleagues on AI-generated documents or projects—all while maintaining the highest standards of security and safety.”

Note: What stood out to me here, aside from the app itself, was the mention of reliable sources being added to the Team Plan. Assuming these will be web sources, could be a good source of B2B traffic.

Microsoft’s GeckOpt Optimizes Large Language Models: Enhancing Computational Efficiency with Intent-Based Tool Selection in Machine Learning Systems – Sana Hassan

Microsoft’s GeckOpt Optimizes Large Language Models: Enhancing Computational Efficiency with Intent-Based Tool Selection in Machine Learning Systems
Excerpt: “The GeckOpt system, developed by Microsoft Corporation researchers, represents a cutting-edge approach to intent-based tool selection. This methodology involves a preemptive user intent analysis, allowing for an optimized selection of API tools before the task execution begins. The system operates by narrowing down the potential tools to those most relevant to the task’s specific requirements, minimizing unnecessary activations, and focusing computational power where it is most needed.”

What it means: Intent-based tool selection is a method in machine learning systems that focuses on using the most relevant tools for a task. This is achieved by figuring out the intent of the user’s commands. It’s helpful for Microsoft Copilot, as noted in the article, because it reduces the system costs and improves response times without sacrificing performance.

Backpropagation – The Most Fundamental Training Systems Algorithm in Modern Generative AI – Thomas Cherickal, HackerNoon

Backpropagation - The Most Fundamental Training Systems Algorithm in Modern Generative AI
Excerpt: “The backpropagation algorithm works by first calculating the error at the output layer of the neural network. This error is then propagated backwards through the network, from the output layer to the input layer, hence the name ‘backpropagation.’”

What it means: Backpropagation is so important to understand, IMO. It allows neural networks to learn from mistakes and improve performance over time. In the context of search engines, we can use backpropagation — as a concept — to understand how ranking systems can change. In fact, I made note of backpropagation in a metaphor in my refreshed 11x content article — can you tell I want people to read this article?! Ha.

Replacing Judges with Juries: Evaluating LLM Generations with a Panel of Diverse Models – Pat Verga, Sebastian Hofstatter, Sophia Althammer, Yixuan Su, Aleksandra Piktus, Arkady Arkhangorodsky, Minjie Xu, Naomi White, Patrick Lewis

Replacing Judges with Juries: Evaluating LLM Generations with a Panel of Diverse Models
Excerpt: “Evaluations most commonly use a single large model like GPT4. While this method has grown in popularity, it is costly, has been shown to introduce intramodel bias, and in this work, we find that very large models are often unnecessary. We propose instead to evaluate models using a Panel of LLm evaluators (PoLL). Across three distinct judge settings and spanning six different datasets, we find that using a PoLL composed of a larger number of smaller models outperforms a single large judge, exhibits less intra-model bias due to its composition of disjoint model families, and does so while being over seven times less expensive.”

What it means: Evaluating the correctness of a large language model’s free-form generation is challenging. Using GPT-4 for these evaluations can introduce intra-model bias, but by using a Panel of LLM evaluations (PoLL), the researchers find less intra-model bias while also being less expensive. For SEOs, this can be a reminder that relying on a single LLMs for feedback, like on a blog post or product description — something I do — can involve subjectivity, but this can be improved by using multiple LLMs, particularly from different families.

Concern About ‘Scarily Good’ Google AI Fueled Microsoft’s OpenAI Investments – Kate Irwin, PC Mag

Concern About 'Scarily Good' Google AI Fueled Microsoft's OpenAI Investments
Excerpt: “Ignoring Google’s AI efforts was a “mistake,” a Microsoft exec said in a 2019 email exchange sent shortly before Redmond’s billion-dollar investment in OpenAI.”

Note: I tweeted about why I found this interesting:

Danti’s natural language search engine for Earth data soars with $5M in new funding – Aria Alamalhodaei, TechCrunch

Danti’s natural language search engine for Earth data soars with $5M in new funding - Aria Alamalhodaei, TechCrunch
Excerpt: “Founded by Jesse Kallman in early 2023, Danti has developed a natural language search engine for data that has historically been highly siloed, like satellite imagery, collating it with other commercial and government sources to report back across multiple sources and domains.”

Note: What I found interesting about this were the niche uses of search engines with new data sources, but also looking at the larger implications of natural language for search engines, generally.

Visit Hamsterdam Research for More

TikTok content

It’s a search engine, right?

@andrew_ships Replying to @forchat153 ♬ original sound – andrewships | Tech & Product
@jordanrogers2626 Branding Details: take notes from the Golfer’s Journal & Tracksmith Running 🤌🏼 A creative mastermind at Nike once said to me, “The details matter to those who matter.” It’s hard to go the extra mile. But it’s worth it. And if it were easy, everyone would do it. Go to the place where l1nks live to get that one pager that might help you think about this- my workshop might too 👊🏼 #branding #tracksmith #marketing ♬ original sound – Jordan Rogers
@brandsauce.co Replying to @Gabby| Think clear speak clear Gen Z broke marketing, so how can you market to them? how to use the “new” marketing framework and what categories its best-suited for. #marketing #brand #genz ♬ original sound – joe builds brands | brandsauce
@syntaxfm Scraping gives you access to essentially all the data on the World Wide Web. Web Scraping + Reverse Engineering APIs: Covers techniques for web scraping, dealing with private APIs, handling authentication, parsing HTML, and challenges like captchas. Watch the full episode at syntax.fm/763 #scraping #webscraping #apis #webdevelopment #programming #authentication #html #datacollection #data ♬ original sound – Syntax Podcast

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.

The origins of May the 4th – Perplexity Thread

The origins of May the 4th on Perplexity

Great job making it to the end. You rock!

Want help with your SEO strategy?

I’m an independent SEO consultant based in Orlando, Florida, focusing on custom audits and strategies for brands. Don’t hesitate to reach out, or visit my about page for more information about me.

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

Cheers!

SEO Strategist and Consultant

Ethan Lazuk

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