🐹 Hamsterdam Part 82: Weekly SEO & AI News Recap (1/20 to 1/26, 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! 🙌
- I wrote a new blog post this week in Hamsterdam History: Comparing 2018 SEO tips to 2025. Check it out!
- Enjoy the remaining NFL playoff games today (go Commanders and Bills)! 🏈
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: “Qualified lead”
A qualified lead is a potential customer who meets specific criteria set out by a company, whether that’s their budget or intent to make a purchase.
Marketers generally discuss qualified leads as MQLs (marketing qualified leads) and SQLs (sales qualified leads).
MQLs are qualified in the sense of being amenable to marketing materials, while SQLs have been introduced to the brand via marketing and qualify to speak with the sales team.
I’d be remiss not to also mention qualified traffic, which in SEO refers to traffic that has value to the business. One supposition about AIOs and even generative AI search broadly is that it’ll result in fewer clicks but more qualified traffic.
Has that been your experience so far?
🤖 AI word of the week: “Quantization”
Quantization in machine learning is the process of reducing the precision of the numbers used in a model, such as weights, activations, or both, from a higher-precision format (like 32-bit floating-point) to a lower-precision format (like 8-bit integers).
The purpose of quantization is so that models take up less memory, which helps when deploying them on devices with limited storage or memory, such as smartphones.
Quantization also enables faster computations and lower power consumption, though its drawbacks include a potential loss in accuracy and complex implementation.
How quantization works is that instead of storing a wide range of floating-point values, a model’s weights and/or activations are rounded to a smaller set of possible values.
Sometimes after reducing precision a model may lose accuracy, so a brief retraining (fine-tuning) step may be implemented.
😄 Introduction to week 82: New beginnings
A short and personal intro this week …
I’ve accepted a new job role as an SEO director for an agency.
Why did I decide to go back to agency life after running my own consulting business for a year?
The people.
I miss the interactions of being part of a team.
I look forward to sharing Hamsterdam with my new team members and sharing stories of my new professional journey here and elsewhere in my blog.
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 81 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 or 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! 🪨
🤝 Want help with your SEO strategy?
I’m an independent SEO consultant focusing on custom audits and holistic strategies for brands. Don’t hesitate to reach out, or visit my about page for more information.
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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