🐹 Hamsterdam Part 97: Weekly SEO & AI News Recap (5/3 to 5/9, 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! 🙌
- Who else is expecting a core update soon?
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: “First-party data”
First-party data is information that a business collects directly from its customers through website visits, email sign-ups, purchases, surveys, etc.
Unlike third-party data (data bought from other companies), first-party data is more accurate and reliable because it comes straight from the source.
First-party data is valuable for SEO because it helps businesses understand what their audience is really searching for and how they behave on a website. This allows us to create better content and improve user experience, which can lead to higher search rankings and more conversions over time.
🤖 AI word of the week: “Fine-tuning”
Fine-tuning is a way to improve a pre-trained AI model by giving it new, specific examples so it can learn to do a particular task better.
Fine-tuning is like taking a student who already knows general math and teaching them how to solve just geometry problems.
The model already understands a lot from being trained on huge amounts of data, but fine-tuning helps it become more focused and accurate in one area, such as answering customer service questions or writing in a certain style. This makes AI tools smarter and more useful without having to start training from scratch, saving time and resources.
😄 Introduction to week 97: “Kids today”
I tune into TikTok every evening to watch clips and relax. Lately I saw two different indications of Gen Z behavior that I felt were relevant to the search industry.
The first was a police video — no judgement — where a young lady knew some information and the officers asked her how. She said, “I searched it up on Instagram.” Now that phrase, “search it up” is a modern day replacement for “Googled it” because the search platforms people use may not default to Google. I found it interesting to hear “search it up” in the wild.
The second happened last night. A young man was playing a UFC fighting game on Xbox and streaming it. He showed a screen grab of a Reddit conversation. He then said, “Reddit is where it’s at. It’s real people talking about stuff instead of whatever Google says.” This one is highly relevant because we’ve all seen the prevalence of Reddit in search results. Well, they’re popular. Also, “whatever Google says” likely refers to SEO-driven content in the colloquial.
I felt these two examples highlight the current state of search, where Google is not necessarily the default search platform for Gen Z. Quite interesting!
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 96 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! ✌️
Leave a Reply