Why Black-Hat SEO Agencies Target the Online Gambling Industry

As with anything in life, there is certainly a right way and a wrong way of practicing SEO. The right way is, of course, shaped around a view to longevity; working to achieve visibility does not happen in a day and, when it does happen, the work does not stop. It involves a great deal of time, research, industry knowledge and creativity – particularly within the online gambling industry, where sites exist between a rock and a hard place.

In this instance, the rock is a seemingly endless list of competitors who are not going anywhere any time soon; the hard place is the pervasive bias against this industry, both from the search engines themselves, and from the sites that could spell the difference between successful link building efforts, and wasted time and resources.

Avoiding Black-hat SEO practices is vital for any business, no matter what industry they operate within – but, for those seeking visibility among other leading online gambling brands, the need to focus only on the strongest and most viable techniques is imperative.

What is Black-Hat SEO?

Black-hat SEO is an umbrella term for practices that attempt to manipulate search engine rankings for sites by going directly against the terms of use put forth by search engines. Agencies who utilise these methods – such as using invisible text to stuff keywords into pages, or using a PBN (private blog network) for link building – take an ‘ends justify the means’ approach to link building. If it raises domain authority and improves a site’s ranking on the search engine results pages (SERP), then the how and why needn’t matter.

Except that it does. Black-hat SEO is insubstantial at best, and, at worse, renders companies incredibly vulnerable to a sudden slip down the ranks when search engines catch on.

What are the Risks of Investing into Black-Hat SEO Practices?

If caught – an eventuality that is growing increasingly likely as Google hones its algorithm and grows more attuned to superficial attempts at attracting their attention – sites could experience a very sudden drop in page ranking. Not only that, but it could prove incredibly difficult for you to rectify this issue in the future; even with the best SEO behind you, the road to recovery may well be much slower than it would be for a site just starting out online.

Safe, maintainable and original practices – in other words, casino SEO services that are of genuine value to the companies investing into them – do not expose companies to these same risks. For instance, in the case of link building, fears over the penalties imposed by Google upon those who deliberately attempt to manipulate search ranking and domain authority only prove themselves to be justified when SEO agencies take a cynical approach to the process.

By creating content of genuine consequence, and placing it with sites whose audiences represent the ideal readership for that content, for instance, link building efforts prove not only safe, but extremely advantageous to gambling sites.

Why Are These Agencies Targeting iGaming Companies?

Agencies that deploy Black-hat SEO techniques will target sites operating within the online gambling world for one simple reason: it is a tempting prospect, particularly for an industry defined by competition.

The benefit (if it can be called that) of Black-hat techniques is that they often lead to a swift rise through the SERP rankings. The results are tangible, and sites feel immediately more confident in their investment into SEO.

What’s more, online gambling services prove, to many agencies, to be far more challenging than a long list of other businesses, industries and sectors. Competition is high, creating original content that ranks highly on Google’s SERP is difficult, and many webmasters will be reluctant to give space to an industry that remains so divisive. As such, the search for a truly worthwhile SEO agency can prove difficult for iGaming sites – and trial and error costs a lot of time and money.

This one of the main reasons why agencies that deploy Black-hat SEO practices still exist. Whether their strategies put these practices front and centre, or, alternatively, they simply slip a few bad practices in alongside the good, they are able to offer a quick fix where strong agencies cannot.

The only trouble is that unsuspecting clients become the victims of these practices. Google is clear about its guidelines, and knowing, comprehending and keeping up to date with these guidelines is part and parcel of running any truly successful SEO agency today.