Google and Yahoo

[Casinomeister]

I'm just wondering how most webmasters feel about google and yahoo banning online casino ads. Personaly, I think it is short sited and a narrow-minded way of doing business.

I used to purchase pay-per-clicks ads for the scavenger hunt and Who Wants to be a Casinomeister contest, never spending over $50 a month. I haven't renewed any of these for a few months since these contests have been off-line, but I checked my account the other day and I noticed that Overture had no online casino ads listed. Odd, I must have missed that unless they discontinued this before the month's end.

[drkasper]

If you ask me, from a UK perspective, its downright stupid .

But Google's allegedly in their 'floatation' year, so it doesn't surprise me. It wouldn't come as a shock if they re-evaluate sometime after the float.
As for Overture - apparantly, they're banning online casino ads too - but so far, only for the US.
I'm sure there's a few PPC sales execs out there cheering...or crying in their beer...depending on the ole corporate policy

[dominique]

I anticipate worse to come.

Hopefully some of the smaller PPCs will clean up their act and become useable. They stand to gain a huge amount of $$$ if they do.

The best thing to do now is SEO - and those of us who have some oldfashioned branding in place will continue on with business as usual.

[drkasper]

well, its d-day+2 for Google and they still have yet to pull gambling ads

there's a couple of UK/European PPC networks that are just as good as Overture and happily taking gambling ads...

[Casinomeister]

there's a couple of UK/European PPC networks that are just as good as Overture and happily taking gambling ads...

Care to share?

[drkasper]

Care to share?

no problem..

Espotting is the big one.

Mirago is smaller but PPC is much cheaper right now (until everyone gets on board) and just as good, IMHO

There's also Webfinder - but i've yet to use it...

[Casinomeister]

well, its d-day+2 for Google and they still have yet to pull gambling ads...

I thought the deadline was the end of this month? (today)

In the long run, this may be a good thing. This will cause most webmasters to concentrate on content and SEO, not just buying up links, any bloke can do that. Too much crap out there.

But it will definitely be a wake up call for the rouge operators. In the past when some casinos have been rogued here, the operators pooh-poohed it telling me "I don't give a shit about being in your rogue section. It is meaningless since our traffic comes from our search engine listings." Bummer for them now since they can't buy their way to the top anymore

[drkasper]

I thought the deadline was the end of this month? (today)

Seems like it probably is today - but my email said the 27th - they're still running ads at the moment - but it'll be interesting if google could pull them all at once.

In the long run, this may be a good thing. This will cause most webmasters to concentrate on content and SEO, not just buying up links, any bloke can do that

I agree to a certain extent. It will be about content and SEO - but what about the new guys out there? There's no quick way to get into search engines anymore - even with great content and well executed SEO. Its even harder to move up the rankings with any great speed. Which means that a useful site can sit there for 6 months or more without achieving anything - with google ads, at least there was a chance of the site being seen.

But yes, as a way of filtering out rogue operators - its a great thing. However, they'll always find another way to scam the public...

[Casinomeister]

I think that this will also open the doors for other creative means of getting well positioned. Pay per click is relatively a new concept; it's only about three years (?) old. Before then, webmasters focused on meeting the needs of how search engines spidered a site.

I agree, the new guys getting into the market will be challenged, but if they truly have something unique, they should be able to get out there.

Maybe focusing on Europe is the answer...

[dominique]

While poking around google I didn't see anything encouraging. Very spammy sites with little content are google's favorites at the time.

This could go either way - it may end up with people spamming the search engines like crazy.