Affiliate income - megabucks or not?

[Webzcas]

Maybe I am old skool, but in my experience regarding seo, content is king and always will be king. Why do you think blackhats sites steal other sites content to use for their sites?

My politics site which generates no income, seriously kicks the backside of other major sites in google, such as the BBC and other major news outlets. The traffic it receives I could only dream of for my gambling portals.

The reason why it gets such good organic traffic is due to having a very active forum.

With a competitive online industry such as the gambling industry, not only do you have to have good content, but you also need to work on the seo side.

Sites like Casinomeister naturally attract backlinks due to the content on the website and the forum, so for Bryan I'd imagine he does not need to work on the seo side as much as myself and other webmasters.

I'd also bet that the content in the casinomeister forum brings in a lots of referred traffic from the search engines.

 

[thelawnet]

Maybe I am old skool, but in my experience regarding seo, content is king and always will be king. Why do you think blackhats sites steal other sites content to use for their sites?

My politics site which generates no income, seriously kicks the backside of other major sites in google, such as the BBC and other major news outlets. The traffic it receives I could only dream of for my gambling portals.

This one: Old / Expired Link

?

I guess the problem with it is that the traffic is too mixed to be great for advertisers.

Curious: have you tried sticking up a few 888.com banners or whatever? If so, do they pay better than regular google ads?

 

[Webzcas]

This one: Old / Expired Link

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I guess the problem with it is that the traffic is too mixed to be great for advertisers.

Curious: have you tried sticking up a few 888.com banners or whatever? If so, do they pay better than regular google ads?

Yep that is the one.

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#3 and #8 for current affairs for example.

Yep I tried advertising casinos on there, but it is not targetted gambling traffic. Hence not worthwhile doing.

 

[thelawnet]

Yep that is the one.

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#3 and #8 for current affairs for example.

True, but people don't search for current affairs, they search for news.

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News 1. Current affairs - too small to measure in relation to news

Although 'current affairs' is about a quarter as popular as "Online casino", which would be quite good, although that doesn't appear to be as big a term as people might think. Most people are not looking for an "online casino". 888 is twice as popular as "online casino", ladbrokes 3 times more popular, etc.

 

[Webzcas]

Whilst I think we are derailing the thread. That term is only one of several thousand used each month that brings in traffic.

 

[Simmo!]

I'd like to make one other point about becoming a gambling affiliate.

Casino Affs are fast becoming a thing of the past.

When the UGIEA goes away.. the big boys will come back and when online gambling is legal in the US they won't NEED affiliates anymore.

888 and Harrahs have already teamed up and are waiting for the UGIEA to be over turned.. they are both anti affiliate in a big way and looking to control online gaming inside the US.

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.

Not sure on that one myself. While there is a profit in player value, taking ino account affiliate commissions, it seems logical affiliates will continue to exist. Commissions might waver, but it's natural that as more casinos compete in the online market any cost-effective way of gaining an advantage will be embraced. As long as affiliate costs don't account for profit margins, most casinos will probably still find them profitable.

And even if I'm proved wrong, because of the UIGEA, most savvy affiliates have re-aligned to an extent where the USA is no longer a necessity but a luxury.

On the original topic, I think there is still room in the market for affiliates who, as players, impart knowledge which has a genuine use to readers. Forget the promotional crap that used to be standard affiliate fare, the way to get a foothold is via honesty thus encouraging loyalty IMO. Only players can provide this.

On commissions: any casino that offers more than 35% or $250 CPA ongoing raises big questionmarks with me. I've researched the costs involved in running a successful online casino and it's not sustainable en-masse. The odd individual deal, maybe, but as a general commission, more than this puts the affiliates at risk down the line one way or another.

 

[lots0]

So why are you being so cloak-and-dagger about Adwords CPCs?

Because they are not just adwords keywords... they are keywords that bring traffic in the search engines.

Not sure on that one myself. While there is a profit in player value, taking ino account affiliate commissions, it seems logical affiliates will continue to exist. Commissions might waver, but it's natural that as more casinos compete in the online market any cost-effective way of gaining an advantage will be embraced. As long as affiliate costs don't account for profit margins, most casinos will probably still find them profitable.

I was mostly talking about the US. What I think we will see here is a continuation of the big boys consolidating and like I said 888 and Harras are both very anti affiliate. I don't think the big affiliates will go away, but I do think the market will become much harder maybe even impossible for new affs to enter. Again just my opinion.

On commissions: any casino that offers more than 35% or $250 CPA ongoing raises big questionmarks with me. I've researched the costs involved in running a successful online casino and it's not sustainable en-masse. The odd individual deal, maybe, but as a general commission, more than this puts the affiliates at risk down the line one way or another.

I was going to write the same thing. From what I know an online casino can only pay affs around 35% and still remain profitable. As far as the CPA goes. I don't really mess around with CPA anymore but I know I've had problems with casinos that pay more than $100 in CPA in the past. For example I believe Grand Privy pays around $400 CPA...