Affiliate income - megabucks or not?

[4 of a kind]

The way I see it, when online gambling becomes totally and completely legal in the US it will be the end of casino affiliates, at least as we know them.

[QUOTE= from Webzcas]It is certainly not as lucrative as it was in the past, but the opportunities are there and will be even more so once the UIGEA becomes a thing of the past.[QUOTE]

I see these opinions also differ. I'm sure there are a few people doing well at this point with the program, and certainly would never condemn anyone trying to work hard and honest for a buck. It just seems to be a risky place to work.

P.S. Can anyone tell me how to take quotes from two or more posts and reply to them in one post????

[zebedy]

I found this thread very interesting, and not surprised to find it somewhat depressing. I would guess like any other business some people end up fairing pretty well while most fall to the way side.

But after taking into consideration what actually takes place with online casinos and poker rooms, why would anyone seriously consider getting involved investing their time and money with such a group of proven crooks?

Of course just like accredited casinos that pay their winners, more then likely their are accredited ones that also pay their affiliates. Yet, based on what I could tell, maybe 5% are straight up with 95% bad in one way or another. You also run the risk of being involved with a good place to play today, but rogue tomorrow.

When you consider all the legitimate problems and bullshit we read about day in and day out about online casinos and poker rooms, why should it be any different for affiliates.

I couldn't even imagine my income being based on trusting an online casino being forthcoming about who signed on and deposited thanks to me. I'd feel safer getting a shopping cart and walking around picking up deposit bottles.

Based on the posts I read up to this point on this subject, it sounds like you might have a better chance investing your time and money actually playing at one of the accredited casinos, and hope you get a cash out.

I'm certain a small percentage of people might fair okay with this program today but tomorrow sure looks scary. It seems to be safe to say that your hard work and what appears to be long hours invested, might be better spent on another idea.

I asked a similar question asked over a gawp(not a typo ) some time back

heres the link if anyones interested

http://www.gpwa.org/forum/why-would-...ss-182219.html

[JHV]

I don't know how ETHICAL it is to ask a player if they are still playing at a casino - but I WOULD LOVE TO...

I mean - WHO is watching the casino affiliate sites - and how do we TRUST them when things like this happen?

I'm not willing to name names - not yet any way - but I'd like to know if OTHER affiliates have noticed a trend like this recently?

Perhaps you could frame the question to the player in such a way that he might give you hints whether he's still playing there? Maybe frame it like a Customer Satisfaction survey of some kind? I know it's hard to believe, but some people actually love responding to surveys - and do it all day for token chump change (they're mostly just doing it cause they enjoy it). I'd rather take a cheese-grater to a vital part of my anatomy myself than fill out surveys all day, but some people really love giving feedback.

For one... have some one you know make a small deposit through your aff links... If the deposit don't show up, you know your getting screwed.

I've caught several well known casinos cheating this way.

<added> after more than a decade in this business.. I start out with the idea that any casino I don't already know are a bunch crooks... they have to prove to me that they are not before I'll do business with them.

Sometimes they still fool me though... cough.. rome.. cough..

Yep, this is a great test and one I do on any poker site I'm considering listing - it's also important to know how long CS take to respond, how fast does the signup show, is revenue tracked cleanly, and many more benefits. I have friends to help me with this - holla at me WagerWitch if you desperately need a test done before investing a whole bunch of time in a special page or promotion - I don't mind depositing and testing for you on occasion.

Of course, it doesn't help with your problem where the casino (imo) almost certainly just took the player off your affiliate tracking so they can keep his rev share. And I'm SURE it happens OFTEN with many casinos and is far more widespread a practice than many realise - just my gut feeling. I mean, it's just so easy for them to do and so incredibly hard for them to get caught as most of the time the affiliate and the player won't even be connected. Then if busted, they'd just claim some technical error, etc.

There was a poll over at AGD about how much affiliates make a month, id sure like to know the secret to making $150.000 a month,

I can't give you the answer to that. But if you type in "online casino" into Google, I bet the holders of these positions could tell you: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.....HOLY CRAP! WagerWitch! I've been to your site before, would that explain why you're showing on my Google "online casino" front page? What the....!?

Is WagerWitch front page for anyone who hasn't been to her site when you type in "online casino" into Google?

P.S. Can anyone tell me how to take quotes from two or more posts and reply to them in one post????

I have recently learned this mystical secret from Max and I shall share it with you. Press MultiQuote button for each post you want to quote, each MultiQuote button pressed will highlight Red (as least they do on my Firefox) and then press Post Reply.

[thelawnet]

I can't give you the answer to that. But if you type in "online casino" into Google, I bet the holders of these positions could tell you: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.....HOLY CRAP! WagerWitch! I've been to your site before, would that explain why you're showing on my Google "online casino" front page? What the....!?

I tried this in a fresh browser, and yep, she's there. Albeit not a search result but a blog post, after all of the search results.There aren't that many non-spammy casino blogs I guess.

[JHV]

I tried this in a fresh browser, and yep, she's there. Albeit not a search result but a blog post, after all of the search results.There aren't that many non-spammy casino blogs I guess.

Wow.

WagerWitch, you should be wealthy I think.

I realise it's a blog post, not a SERP, but it's front page on Google for freaking "online casino". I mean, I'm no expert, but this HAS to be worth SERIOUS $ surely!?!

[KasinoKing]

P.S. Can anyone tell me how to take quotes from two or more posts and reply to them in one post????

Yep!
Say you want to quote 3 posts; on the first two hit "MultiQuote" and on the last one just "Quote"

The only reason your second quote didn't come out right is because you must have deleted the / before the ending Quote - [quote]

Wow.

WagerWitch, you should be wealthy I think.

I realise it's a blog post, not a SERP, but it's front page on Google for freaking "online casino". I mean, I'm no expert, but this HAS to be worth SERIOUS $ surely!?!

Front page of Google means nothing if no-one is searching for what you have!
Shown below - result #1 from 22,400
I ain't no millionaire!

[Webzcas]

I realise it's a blog post, not a SERP, but it's front page on Google for freaking "online casino". I mean, I'm no expert, but this HAS to be worth SERIOUS $ surely!?!

I doubt it gets as much traffic as you would think. Especially as it is listed as a footnote blog link at the bottom. It is nevertheless a good achievement.

Up until recently when google had a minor earthquake of their serps, I ranked #5 for online casinos in google.co.uk. You would think that would bring in truck loads of traffic.

Whilst the traffic was nice, it was nowhere near as good as I would have expected.

Now adwords has opened up for gambling terms, it means it dilutes the clickthrus even further. 70% of all searches do not go past the number one ranked site. With the following 20% of searches sharing their clicks between 2nd and 3rd spot. The remaining 10% is then spread out. Reducing the further down the page you go.

[WagerWitch]

I've been telling you guys - I'm naturally good with SEO...

And I've worked really hard at it - AND --- AND --- People I know have helped me all along the way - teaching me things - helping me out... I've known some fabulous peeps who are amazing at what they do and what they know.

But it doesn't matter - I'm NOT drawing NEW players in no matter HOW top rate I am in the search engines.

And it's not just Google for top keywords...

I'm even a lowly PR2 site.

But - nevertheless - I KNOW what is going out to the casinos - HENCE my question: WHY AM I SEEING ZERO DOLLAR RETURN THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS?

ZERO FOLKS... NADA - NIP - ZERO.

Yanno?


I'm working from a freebie Blog site - and not paying anything but time... And while time is money - it's still free for me.

Like I've said - I HAVE MADE SOME money...

But lately NOTHING.

So my past questions are valid... Yanno?

ANyhow - thanks JHV for noticing about the Ranking - You ought to try BODOG NO DEPOSIT (yes, I know that Bodog doesn't have no deposit bonuses most of the time... in fact - I don't think I've seen one... LOL) But your newbie casino player does not know that... And I didn't mean to get there - but somehow my posts on Bodog - combined with No deposit posts created a top position (on most days) for that...

Anyhow - I don't really promote them as much and they are PAST posts - but because GOOGLE slurps EVERYthing and EVERY page.... well - they show up on my site because of past posts.

And - lately the casinos have taken to writing a MILLION singular BLOGS (not singular posts - but creating blogs) to up their linkage - BLACKHAT SEO tactic... And Google has taken note... So lately - my blog jumped ahead because it's a legitimate blog on the topics.

Anyhow back to the original intent...

NO - I am NOT making money right now - I have in the past, but not now - and I don't know why.

[JHV]

Front page of Google means nothing if no-one is searching for what you have!
Shown below - result #1 from 22,400

Whilst that's actually quite impressive a result in itself (I'm genuinely impressed) - I'm pretty certain it's a very low value search term. I used to be given these reports when I was working for a large casino affiliate site as Editor (to be used for content, etc) of the "value search terms" (I'm sure some affiliates know the reports I'm referring to - the people I was working with were buying ours but I imagine it's possible to get them for free - basically each search term listed in some tangible form of $ worth for the purpose of ranking their value) - and I just can't ever remember seeing "10c roulette" on any of those lists. I could be wrong but I vaguely remember "$5 roulette" or "$5 blackjack" scraping in at some point but this was some time ago.

Not to mention the obvious fact that someone searching 10c roulette is not going to be close (in terms of potential value) to someone searching $5 roulette.

I'm genuinely impressed though - but I can see why 10c roulette isn't making you rich despite being Result 1 of about 22,200 for 10c roulette - I mean, there's eBay auctions on Google front page SERPs for that search term.

But even though WagerWitch's listing was a blog link (now not showing so I don't know what's going on lol), it was smack there above all the "related searches" and anyone going to Page 2 is likely to see it - for like a top 5 or top 10 value search term (at least back when I last looked at one of these "value lists") - Results 1 - 10 of about 37,800,000 for online casino

Caveat: I could be talking gibberish - I'm really not even an amateur in regards to this stuff, let alone an expert. If someone could explain why it's now not showing, please do! I'm hella confused....

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No 5 for "online casinos" google.co.uk is pretty amazing webzcas. I'm am surprised it didn't bring in bucketloads of traffic, you are right there. But at the same time, I understand that 1 is god, top 3 is insane, front page is amazing, etc...

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Every time I look at front page SERPs for high value $ keywords, I get depressed. So few of these sites are getting there via "legitimate" SEO. And, until just now (and I could be displaying my lack of knowledge in embarrassing fashion with the following), I really didn't know what Black Hat was apart from it being considered 'unethical'.

From a bit of reading, it sounds like it's basically just using tricks that Google says are not to be used. If that's correct, um - please don't jump down my throat if this is stupid - what's so bad about that? I say this because the game isn't fair as it is. Google, for whatever reasons, do not have the ability to create a level playing field where quality sites get the top SERPs - how is "black hat" worse than spending millions on targeting link-buys or endless link-swapping, etc? It's all just as bad as the next technique, from what I can see...am I missing something really obvious here?

I mean, in a perfect world, you would have quality sites with quality content on Google front page, but the No 1 SERP for "online casino" - I mean, they're geniuses - their forum has less than 600 posts, in TOTAL. This forum has over 300,000.

When I used to play competitive rugby at uni (I didn't have enough pace to be any good, but we had Australian U/21 rep players in our team, so it was SERIOUS. BUSINESS.), if the referee wasn't policing some aspect of the breakdown correctly, and the other side was smashing you as a result, you'd be a very foolish side not to react accordingly.

Is this analogy a terrible one for the "black hat SEO" issue? Cause to my noob mind, that's how I'm seeing it at the moment. Please correct me if I'm being retarded...

[WagerWitch]

TRUST me when I say Blackhat SEO has destroyed the very premise of what GOOGLE tries to be.

You're not wrong - it is a LOT of work to remain on a top position FOR LONGER THAN A DAY.

Check tomorrow and I'll be back up again - and the next day down.

It is a constant jockeying - figuring out what works - what does not and so on.

It's a lot of work.

It used to be fun - until I realized that I don't think GOOGLE matters that much in this industry.

And this is just MY opinion... I get a decent amount of traffic in Google - but not what you would think...

And I watch the trends and I have been top spot on many keywords for long periods of time - and it doesn't bring in the amount of traffic one would think it should.

It is quite a letdown.

I wonder how the BIG business folks who pay for top spot feel?

Advertising and Google are Tricky things.

And I'm not so sure that Google isn't much different in the respect that they are GIANT affiliates for EVERYTHING in the world.