Created by Ethan Lazuk

New recaps every Sunday!

About Hamsterdam, a place for the latest SEO updates

If you love SEO news and knowledge, step inside the white flags of Hamsterdam!

Hamsterdam is a weekly recap for all things related to SEO news, tips, resources, tools, and opinions, plus related content on topics like AI, information retrieval, or general marketing that may interest search marketing professionals.

With so many insightful posts, articles, and resources shared about SEO every week across social media, newsletters, and websites, it can be hard to keep track of everything, let alone remember it or find it later for reference.

That’s the benefit of Hamsterdam!

Just scroll through each week’s recap, absorb what you like, or save it for later, and carry on.

Plus, the information is shared directly from the sources who contribute it, so you always get the right context.

Latest weekly recaps:

Related weekly news resources:

The goal of Hamsterdam is to share the joys of SEO through weekly recaps, wherever you get that news!

Here are other great places for weekly SEO news:

• The SEO Weekly video show by Garret Sussman of iPullRank
• SEOFOMO (newsletter) by Aleyda Solis
• Weekly Video Recaps of the Search Engine Roundtable by Barry Schwartz
• Weekly SEO News YouTube channel by Olga Zarr

Spin-off projects:

Hamsterdam is growing with two spin-off projects:

• Hamsterdam History: where we look at vintage SEO articles or case studies.
• Hamsterdam Research: where look at AI research papers and speculate on future trends in Search or SEO.

While the original Hamsterdam covers the present (weekly news), these side projects now also address SEO’s past and future. They come out on weekly, as well.

If you’re new to Hamsterdam and want to learn more about the origins of the project, keep reading for an introduction and history.

When you walk through the garden …

There are no agendas in Hamsterdam. Like ethanlazuk.com on the whole, no content is monetized, incentivized, or filtered. It all comes organically from the information I find interesting in my feeds each week on X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Mastodon, Instagram, Reddit, or Google Discover, as well as from newsletters, webinars, or other sources.

That said, I’m constantly discovering more voices to follow for SEO (and more recently AI) information, so please don’t think this is everyone!

I’ll also never share anything I consider as misinformation, dishonest, or ill-intentioned. 😉

Thanks to the SEO community for sharing their knowledge every week. If you like a person’s content, please support them with a like, follow, or friendly comment.

A history of Hamsterdam, the SEO project

The first news recap in what is today Hamsterdam came out the week of April 9th, 2023.

Here’s the tweet that sparked the idea:

I’m making it a habit to go back and review tweets I liked more regularly. So much great SEO info and news sharing out there, it can be easy to forget!

May start organizing these somewhere, like a weekly recap … 🤔

— Ethan Lazuk 🪬 (@EthanLazuk) April 11, 2023

We officially hit our 1-year anniversary with Hamsterdam Part 53. I wrote about the journey here, and we’re only just getting started!

In the beginning, Hamsterdam was called, “The Twitter Files.” The name was in the news at the time, but it was actually a reference to X-Files, a show that was the theme for the early recaps.

Growing up, my family were fans of X-Files. We’re talking the series, movies, action figures, posters, you name it! It looks like X-Files might reboot soon as well. 😉

So calling the recaps “The Twitter Files” and making them X-Files-themed was a tribute to my nostalgia.

Then after 15 weeks of recaps, Twitter rebranded to X, and so I renamed “The Twitter Files” as “The X Files.” It almost seemed like fate!

But as fate would have it, I also started embracing more sources of SEO news and insights beyond X. That was the purpose for changing “The X Files” to “Hamsterdam,” which is broader in scope.

But where does the name “Hamsterdam” come from?

While X-Files (and sci-fi content) were family favorites in my childhood home, I personally grew to love realism. In college, I studied cultural anthropology (with an emphasis on the Islamic world) and American government, and I later worked in the nonprofit sector before doing digital marketing. I prefer content that portrays different realistic perspectives on our society.

Among my favorite TV writers is David Simon, who created, The Wire. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve watched thousands of hours of The Wire. My X profile bio even claims, “The Wire aficionado.” (But David has also made other great content, like Treme about New Orleans, which is masterful.)

Hamsterdam is from season 3 of The Wire, where the character Major Colvin creates free zones for sanctioned street activity as a way to move it from the corners, where it interfered with everyday citizens’ lives. This was all unofficial. The free zones were explained by an officer named Herc as being, “like Amsterdam.” Some young people didn’t get the reference and started calling it “Hamsterdam.” The name stuck.

Hamsterdam later became a place welcome to all, designed to help all.

The name itself is also a bit tongue in cheek — while “Hamsterdam” is a joke of sorts, the community itself was meant for accomplishing serious work.

That’s the idea here, as well.

Learning SEO today and staying updated on industry news should be fun, but it’s also a serious matter. Outdated sources or misinformation about SEO can be found everywhere, especially given our current era with generative AI.

Finding reliable sources has never been more important, and showcasing those voices is our goal with Hamsterdam

In addition to a collection of the week’s SEO and, more increasingly, AI news, tips, and other content, every Hamsterdam recap also has a “This week in SEO history” section as well as an introduction about a current theme of the week.

Some favorite introductions include:

• MLK Day and Orlando’s Parramore District (Part 40)
• Google’s refreshed SEO Starter Guide (Part 42)
• AI agents announced at Google Cloud Next (Part 53)

Another benefit of Hamsterdam recaps is for historical or topic research. If you’re interested in an SEO topic or timeframe, these recaps can help you find contemporary resources and context.

Check out the Hamsterdam Newsletter

I share each Hamsterdam recap on my X and LinkedIn accounts every Sunday. I’ve also created a free newsletter. This includes highlights from each recap as well as a link to the full article.

I send the newsletters using MailPoet, which is so far a legit provider with great technical support.

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More recent Hamsterdam recaps

Dig deeper into previous weeks of SEO news with Hamsterdam recaps from the last 2 months or so.

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Hungry for more? View all Hamsterdam recaps going back to April 2023, or use the drop down to find a specific recap:

Select a Recap Hamsterdam Part 1 Hamsterdam Part 5 Hamsterdam Part 6 Hamsterdam Part 7 Hamsterdam Part 9 Hamsterdam Part 10 Hamsterdam Part 11 Hamsterdam Part 12 Hamsterdam Part 13 Hamsterdam Part 14 Hamsterdam Part 15 Hamsterdam Part 20 Hamsterdam Part 21 Hamsterdam Part 22 Hamsterdam Part 23 Hamsterdam Part 24 Hamsterdam Part 25 Hamsterdam Part 26 Hamsterdam Part 27 Hamsterdam Part 28 Hamsterdam Part 29 Hamsterdam Part 30 Hamsterdam Part 31 Hamsterdam Part 32 Hamsterdam Part 33 Hamsterdam Part 34 Hamsterdam Part 35 Hamsterdam Part 36 Hamsterdam Parts 37 & 38 Hamsterdam Part 39 Hamsterdam Part 40 Hamsterdam Part 41 Hamsterdam Part 42 Hamsterdam Part 43 Hamsterdam Part 44 Hamsterdam Part 45 Hamsterdam Part 46 Hamsterdam Part 47 Hamsterdam Part 48 Hamsterdam Part 49 Hamsterdam Part 50 Hamsterdam Part 51 Hamsterdam Part 52 Hamsterdam Part 53 Hamsterdam Part 54 Hamsterdam Part 55 Hamsterdam Part 56 Hamsterdam Part 57

Note: Some of the older Hamsterdam articles were lost, but I’ll restore them if I’m able to!

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