🐹 Hamsterdam Part 99: Weekly SEO & AI News Recap (5/17 to 5/23, 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! 🙌
- The AI Mode era is officially upon us. The data isn’t. 🤔
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: “Hero image”
A hero image is a large, visually appealing header image (or banner) that’s prominently displayed at the top of a webpage. It’s usually the first thing a user sees, designed to immediately capture their attention and communicate the webpage’s core message or the site’s brand identity.
From a marketing perspective, an effective hero image enhances the user experience, boosts engagement, and increases conversions by clearly highlighting the theme of the page, whether it be a blog post or key products, services, or promotions.
In SEO, a well-optimized hero image can indirectly benefit a site by improving metrics such as user dwell time, reducing bounce rates, and supporting keyword relevance through proper alt text. And let’s not forget about Discover eligibility.
🤖 AI word of the week: “Human-in-the-loop”
Human-in-the-loop is about involving people in the decision-making process of an AI system. Instead of relying completely on automation, these systems regularly ask humans to check, confirm, or correct their decisions.
As an example, when an AI tool is sorting images, it might ask a person if a certain image belongs in a specific category. This helps the AI learn from human judgment, improving accuracy (and safety), especially in important tasks.
Keeping humans involved ensures AI stays helpful and reliable, while reducing mistakes or misunderstandings.
😄 Introduction to week 99: “Save the date”
I’m working on a sizable blog where most of the posts were written between 2020 and 2023. The information is still valid, but I had a hunch the dated content could be holding us back.
We made some notable changes to most of the blog posts, including adding key takeaways and internal links. As a result, I asked the developers to change the blog dates to reflect the “last modified” date.
About a week after the change was made, traffic to the blog as a whole is up.
Now, this could be algorithmic, but I suspect the blog date changes may have contributed to the freshness of the content, at least from a user’s POV. That said, CTR is still the same, so I doubt it’s a NavBoost change that fast.
Anyway, we’ll see where things go from here, but if you have aged content that you’ve since updated, consider changing the date to reflect that.
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 98 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! ✌️
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