Thanks to the increasing amounts of casino spam, some of the biggest web sites are making updates to algorithms over the next couple of months which will impact affiliates unless you make the necessary changes in time.
SSL (
First up is SSL - this is the most important as it’s already impacting search results and visitor experience.
In January Chrome started warning visitors to web sites that didn’t have valid SSL certificates that they may be unsafe to use for login procedures and certain fields where personal information was input. Yesterday (7th March) Mozilla Firefox added the same warnings. These two browsers alone count for around half of web traffic in 2016.
Furthermore, sites that use SSL on their sites rank higher in Google – this is no BS, go search on google for casino bonuses and see the results. For less than £/€50 to buy and little tech experience can you afford not to?
Google
Before quitting Google last month, Matt Cutts head of web spam team at Google announced an upcoming "Penguin" update that would run in real-time, targetting low-value casino affiliate sites. A previous update targeted banner-ad link farms sites, but this next one will be more damaging.
You must avoid:
- Listing multiple casinos with affiliate links on each page (you can probably get away with half a dozen but any more will look spammy to GoogleBot)
- Using direct affiliate links like Outdated URL (Invalid) will be considered spam - instead use URL Not Found / Outdated - which then redirects to the affiliate link (don't forget to use the hidden power of rel="nofollow" tag!!
(The above also plays havoc with pop-up / ad blockers and most people have made these changes already)
Google still loves content. Try to have at least 1000-2500 words on each page full of rich keywords related to the casino. Once more, don’t make it look too spammy to GoogleBot or you’ll be penalised.
Ad Blockers
Last year, many affiliates were hit by the affiliate link pop-up issue. If you think that was a pain in the backside to fix, get ready for “intelligent ad blocking”
Beta versions of the top adblocking extensions on Mozilla and Chrome now look at common image sizes (728px × 90px / 160px × 600px etc) so even if you have renamed and locally hosted banner ads they will be shortly be blocked. Is there really a need for banner-ads if you have a worth-while site?
YouTube
YouTube, has been a victim of casino affiliate spam recently and many CasinoMeister members have reported their videos being stolen.
SDGuy1234 recently spoke about YouTube changes, and if you have short videos (under 10 minutes) on your channel they will be ranked lower in results and will not appear in Google. If you have a big win on a slot, try making compilation videos instead.
YouTube is moving into television streaming this year and wants to create a site with lengthy, worthwhile content. Having lots of short videos, will damage your channel.
SSL (
You do not have permission to view link
Log in or register now.
First up is SSL - this is the most important as it’s already impacting search results and visitor experience.
In January Chrome started warning visitors to web sites that didn’t have valid SSL certificates that they may be unsafe to use for login procedures and certain fields where personal information was input. Yesterday (7th March) Mozilla Firefox added the same warnings. These two browsers alone count for around half of web traffic in 2016.
Furthermore, sites that use SSL on their sites rank higher in Google – this is no BS, go search on google for casino bonuses and see the results. For less than £/€50 to buy and little tech experience can you afford not to?
Before quitting Google last month, Matt Cutts head of web spam team at Google announced an upcoming "Penguin" update that would run in real-time, targetting low-value casino affiliate sites. A previous update targeted banner-ad link farms sites, but this next one will be more damaging.
You must avoid:
- Listing multiple casinos with affiliate links on each page (you can probably get away with half a dozen but any more will look spammy to GoogleBot)
- Using direct affiliate links like Outdated URL (Invalid) will be considered spam - instead use URL Not Found / Outdated - which then redirects to the affiliate link (don't forget to use the hidden power of rel="nofollow" tag!!
(The above also plays havoc with pop-up / ad blockers and most people have made these changes already)
Google still loves content. Try to have at least 1000-2500 words on each page full of rich keywords related to the casino. Once more, don’t make it look too spammy to GoogleBot or you’ll be penalised.
Ad Blockers
Last year, many affiliates were hit by the affiliate link pop-up issue. If you think that was a pain in the backside to fix, get ready for “intelligent ad blocking”
Beta versions of the top adblocking extensions on Mozilla and Chrome now look at common image sizes (728px × 90px / 160px × 600px etc) so even if you have renamed and locally hosted banner ads they will be shortly be blocked. Is there really a need for banner-ads if you have a worth-while site?
YouTube
YouTube, has been a victim of casino affiliate spam recently and many CasinoMeister members have reported their videos being stolen.
SDGuy1234 recently spoke about YouTube changes, and if you have short videos (under 10 minutes) on your channel they will be ranked lower in results and will not appear in Google. If you have a big win on a slot, try making compilation videos instead.
YouTube is moving into television streaming this year and wants to create a site with lengthy, worthwhile content. Having lots of short videos, will damage your channel.
