SEO in the casino niche is HARD - let's talk strategy

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster here. I've been involved in the casino and poker niche since the poker boom. I've always been pretty good at running casino sites, but my SEO skills always took a backseat. All I did in the past was buy lots of links and make lots of money. I had sites earning $10Kish a month, sold sites for mid 5-figures and was killing it. Well, Panda and Penguin hit and I'm scratching my way back up. I still have a few sites that are awesome (in my biased opinion), but I need to get the ball rolling again.

Anyone here have any success link building in the casino niche? It's tough because even the best casino articles have a hard time picking up any legitimate viral sharing. I've tried listening to Matt Cutts' BS for the past year about "content is king" and forgetting about link building... but I've come to the conclusion that's just not enough. You can maybe write up a few good articles that get natural links, but it's super tough in the casino niche. You spend all that time working on one piece of original content while the other guy in the SERPs is blasting links out all over the place and outranking you with his banner farm.

I'm thinking about staring up a private network soley for links. It's a daunting task but it seems like a good way to go. I've also looked into buying existing sites and using those to link to some of my throwaway money sites.

Long story short, let's talk strategy for the casino niche. I'll share anything I can about affiliate programs, writing quality content and anything I know about gambling SEO. I have had my share of success, but it's time to expand.

This is the new SEO strategy for those niches.
Create a crash and burn site.
Spam the crap out and rank.
Reap the monays!!!
Get new aged domain, reuse the content once the older site is deindexed.
Repeat and bank each time.

Maybe you can try the market place section for seo services... I dont know if you checked it already, maybe unrefistered users cant but as you registered why dont yo take a look? Also watch out because some of them dont allow gambling if i remember correctly

I've seen casino sites holding their positions after g00gle updates, most of them are buying links strictly from other casino sites, lots of links around a 1000, to get a good ranking. I imagine how costly that can be but i guess it's worth it.

Re: Untouchable

I've been seeing a lot of that the past few months. It's tempting to go that route. In some ways, Big G has gone backwards two steps.

I have a couple of major sites that I'll be safe with, but I have plenty of throwaways if it comes to that.

As for one of my safe sites, I've been cranking my head coming up with legitimate ways to build a following. This niche doesn't seem to be something that attracts a regular readership like you would see with a politics site or SEO blog. But on the other hand, success comes from those who can find innovative ways to build a loyal base.

This post keeps getting caught up in the moderation system. I tried to reply to Kardoser as well but I had to take it out to get this reply to post. Appreciate the input, Kard.

the strategy of this niche has to build as many crash and burn sites as you can and keep building that. spam and rank one site at a time, one site down and you got plenty more. this niche almost same with branded replica...

Untouchable said:

This is the new SEO strategy for those niches.
Create a crash and burn site.
Spam the crap out and rank.
Reap the monays!!!
Get new aged domain, reuse the content once the older site is deindexed.
Repeat and bank each time.

Click to expand...

When you're aiming to spam link building, do you also mean to keep generic (click here, read more etc.) and domain.com anchor text low?
And only focus on your main keyword as anchor text?

Untouchable said:

This is the new SEO strategy for those niches.
Create a crash and burn site.
Spam the crap out and rank.
Reap the monays!!!
Get new aged domain, reuse the content once the older site is deindexed.
Repeat and bank each time.

Click to expand...

I agree with this guy. However, everyone is doing this now and it isn't really long term.
It seems like you have a good website. If you can increase the authority of the main page, you should outrank a lot of sites.
All you have to do is get a couple of links from very trusted websites like the top news papers like new york times, forbes, and other types of magazines.

For Adult and Gambling sites the best way to go is paid links and/or your own private blog network.

How do you monetize a "casino, poker" whatever site? Which affiliate networks?
Poker guides from clickbank, or some sort of paid poker site?

supermanden said:

How do you monetize a "casino, poker" whatever site? Which affiliate networks?
Poker guides from clickbank, or some sort of paid poker site?

Click to expand...

Most casino/poker sites promote site sign-ups where they can get a revenue share from the casino/poker room from players they refer over.

I'm in the making of a new casino website. I see big payouts from casino sites, paying up to 200 usd per money deposit, do you have any information on conversion ratio you would like to share?

Yes its hand to rank casino sites
but I got success using Russian links

I've just started again with my whitehat casino site and i am already in top 100 for some keywords, non-english.. From now on ill post 1-2 high quality articels/day, lets see how it goes..


A few years ago when i used wordpress (dynamic) for my first time i wanted to create a casino affiliate blog, for affiliates. Well, i learned quickly and my skills got ahead of the design and structure of the site so i abondoned the site becuse of the messy source code.. Anyway, the site is still up if someone wants a few tips on affiliate programs, they are all listed with min revenue-share, max-share, brands and brands bonuses along with malta licenses and aiming for the european market with the net ent platform. You dont have to use my links (if they even work) just google the name
www.netentaffiliates.com

I only work with casino/gambling niche. No problems with any keywords.

Dammit, I am getting tripped up in this new-member spam filter like a mofo. Sorry guys, I had responses for every person but here's the gist of it:

A couple of years ago, all I had to do was get links from other webmasters. I tried to diversify my anchor text and make sure to get deeplinks, but I think I still got too aggressive with some of my money keywords. About conversion rates, it really depends on what you're targeting. For example, a poker news site will need TONS of traffic to make any money. Other search terms don't need much traffic at all. Think about the intent behind each search. That should get you going in the right direction.

Basanti, I need to know all your secrets immediately. Much appreciated. (I kid, I kid).

Oh yea, one other thing. I think you can still succeed in the niche with the right authority site. However, it is EXTREMELY difficult to get to that point. I can think of one website in particular that is known as THE authority on the odds and math behind every game. I don't think that guy needs to linkbuild at all. Just about every website I know of references him at some point.

buying contextual links from quality casino/poker sites is the best way for link building in casino niche and you can also go for press release as well.....

crystalj said:

buying contextual links from quality casino/poker sites is the best way for link building in casino niche and you can also go for press release as well.....

Click to expand...

Basically. Although with press releases, you need to have something really newsworthy. I've done a few press releases in the past, and the most important thing to pick up traction is to have something truly newsworthy. Talking about your "amazing new slots guide" is just fluff and will get you nowhere. Go with a legitimate PR service and give them something they can work with. You'll know it's good if they actually accept your PR. Not easy in the casino niche.

Untouchable said:

This is the new SEO strategy for those niches.
Create a crash and burn site.
Spam the crap out and rank.
Reap the monays!!!
Get new aged domain, reuse the content once the older site is deindexed.
Repeat and bank each time.

Click to expand...

True! All you need is an aff program with lifetime payouts - refer them clients and get pay till they play. Then make new site and refer new player, that's all.

a lot of links from hacked websites there