If you’ve read much of what I’ve written over the last few years, you’ve probably already noticed that I like to fall back on the old “questions and answers” format. When I’m not sure what to write about, I go someplace (usually a forum) and look at what questions people are asking. So today I’m going to answer some “poker SEO questions” I’ve seen. I hope my “poker SEO answers” are useful. (I picked the poker SEO questions based on what I thought would be interesting to write about, so I’m sorry if your poker SEO question didn’t get asked or answered here.)

Poker SEO Questions

1. What are the best poker SEO resources online?
2. How will links from bad neighborhoods affect my ranking?
3. Should I use hyphens in my URL after the tld?
4. What advantages and disadvantages are there to 3 way links?
5. When is the next Google update?
6. Should you do your own poker SEO work or hire someone else to do it for you?
7. Should I get links from other sites pointing to my poker review subpages?
8. What’s the best way to get PR (PageRank) with a poker site?
9. Is offering poker content in exchange for poker links an effective poker linkbuilding strategy?
10. What are the SEO ramifications of changing from .asp to .php?
11. Should I have multiple Google accounts for multiple sites?
12. Does poker content on a poker forum rank as well as poker content on a static poker site?
13. My poker site dropped into oblivion? What should I do about it?
14. If you treat a poker forum just like a poker blog, can it still rank for anything?
15. Are there any worthwhile keyword difficulty tools?
16. What is a PR 6 poker text link worth?
17. Should I use rel=”nofollow” on my poker affiliate links on my poker site?
18. What are the best poker linkbuilding tips for beginners?
19. What are the best internal linking strategies for a poker site?
20. How do you get multiple links to appear under your #1 listing in Google?
    

What are the best poker SEO resources online?

The best poker SEO resources online include:

• Steve Badger’s Poker SEO Site
• Randy Ray’s Poker SEO Posts at the PAP Blog
• Nat Arem’s Poker SEO Blog Posts
• The Poker SEO Forums at Jeremy Enke’s Poker Affiliate Listings
• The Poker SEO Forums at PokerAffiliatePrograms.com
• Online Poker SEO (There’s actually nothing here yet, but it’s my friend Randy’s site, so I have a lot of faith that it WILL be one of the best poker SEO resources online soon.)

Those are the best “poker SEO resources” I know of that cover poker SEO specifically. A few other resources that are useful, but are more about SEO in general, include:

• SEO Book
• SEO Theory
• Best SEO Blog
• The High Rankings Forums
• Eric Ward on Link Building
• Tropical SEO
• Webmaster World
• Search Engine Roundtable

That is by no means an exhaustive list of poker SEO resources, but I think a poker webmaster or poker SEO could be remarkably successful by just spending a week or so reading through those sites and then getting to work.

How will links from bad neighborhoods affect my ranking?

Links from bad neighborhoods aren’t exactly going to help your poker SEO efforts, but at the same time, I think “Googlebowling” is mostly an urban legend. I’ve never seen a poker site get Googlebowled, and I’ve owned and worked on poker sites that would have been prime candidates for a Googlebowling campaign if someone wanted to launch one. To answer the question “how will links from bad neighborhoods affect my ranking? though, you have to define a couple of things.

First off, what’s a bad neighborhood? I think it’s kinda like obscenity. I can’t necessarily define a “bad neighborhood”, but I know one when I see it. Most of the characteristics of a bad neighborhood are pretty easy to recognize though:

• Lousy content
• Links from lots of other sites with lousy content
• Links to lots of other sites with lousy content
• Anonymous lousy content

Good neighborhoods publish good content. Good neighborhoods link to other sites who are publishing good content. The “lousy content” aspect of the bad neighborhood is the biggest clue about a bad neighborhood.

But no, if you’re doing your job correctly (publishing content that ISN’T lousy), then someone probably isn’t going to launch a campaign of getting links to your site from a bad neighborhood in order to destroy your rankings. If this were really possible, someone would have ousted Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars from their high rankings in Google for the word “poker” a long time ago.

Should I use hyphens in my URL after the tld?

Sure, why not? Hypehns in the URL after the tld are better than underscores, for sure.

I don’t generally use a lot of hyphens in my URL’s, but that’s more for an organizational tool than anything else. I like to organize the information on my sites into neat little folders, topics and subtopics. So rather than having a URL that looks like online-poker.htm or even a folder like /online-poker/, I’d rather make it clear through my site architecture that “online poker” is a subtopic of “poker” by creating /poker/online/. I think this approach makes it easier for Google and for users to understand the structure of the information on your site. It also helps you get sitelinks, in my experience.

Think topics, subtopics, and information architecture, and then do what works for you. I’ve seen some speculation that multiple hyphens before OR after the tld could be interpreted by a search engine as a “spam signal”. I don’t know of anything definitive or authoritative about that, but it seems like being safe rather than sorry is easy enough (and prudent). Using folders and subfolders is just as easy (or easier) than using a bunch of hyphens anyway, especially if you have a respectable sized content rich poker website.

What advantages and disadvantages are there to 3 way links?

I know some super successful poker and casino webmasters who ONLY do 3 way links. I also know some super successful poker and casino webmasters who NEVER do 3 way links. The conclusion I draw from this is that it’s possible to be successful with 3 way links as part of your success strategy, but it’s also just as possible to be successful without using 3 way links. But I don’t personally see any advantages to 3 way links as compared to standard reciprocal links.

The idea behind “3 way links” seems to be that Google doesn’t like reciprocal links, so by conducting a “3 way links” strategy, you’re giving the impression to Google that a lot of the links to your site are one way links. That idea proceeds from an erroneous assumption though. Google never said they don’t like reciprocal links; they said they don’t like “excessive reciprocal links”. Big difference.

Google is also on record as saying that they don’t like link schemes. If I link to your site, and you link to my site, because we like each other and want to support each other’s businesses, then that’s hardly a “link scheme”. On the other hand, if I build 20 pages on my site, all of which are meant only to link to other sites, I’ve got a different situation. And if the only criteria I use for listing those sites on those 20 pages is whether or not they link to my site from their pages, then I’m pretty sure I’m crossing over into “link scheme” territory.

But if I’m doing the same thing, only I’m trying to disguise the fact that I’m trading links, then I’m still engaged in a link scheme. And that’s no good at all.

Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for a 3 way link exchange. It might make sense from a topical perspective for example. But for the most part, trying to get some kind of silly advantage by covering up your link exchange efforts is just going to get you kicked in the ass by Google eventually. And it misses the whole point of a sensible linking strategy, which is to link to good resources for your users, and get links back from other sites which do the same.

When is the next Google update?

Google is updating their SERP’s constantly, but the major, earth-shattering updates that they used to have (like the Florida update), hardly ever seem to come around anymore. Google does seem to update their visible PR display 3 or 4 times a year, at intervals of 3 or 4 months each. Google updates aren’t something I worry too much about. I’m an SEO minimalist. I think running your website is the most effective SEO strategy, and running your site involves publishing content and then publicizing that content. Keyword repetition and emphasis should take care of the SEO part.

So when is the next Google update?

Who cares?

Should you do your own poker SEO work or hire someone else to do it for you?

Deciding whether or not to do your own poker SEO work involves considering your goals and positioning in the industry. If you’re the CEO of PokerStars.com, then no, obviously you shouldn’t do your own poker SEO work. You’ve got enough money to hire the best minds in the SEO industry to do your SEO work, and you should take advantage of that. On the other hand, if you’re Wes Young, you don’t have the money to hire someone really good to do your SEO work. Your time would be more effectively used doing some of your own SEO work.

So most smaller independent webmasters should do their own poker SEO work. Frankly, it’s not that hard or time-consuming, and most people don’t do a very good job at poker SEO work anyway. (If they were good at poker SEO, they’d be too busy running their own poker site to do work for you at $12/hour.)

Should I get links from other sites pointing to my poker review subpages?

Well, yeah. If you can. The thing is, links are valuable in direct proportion to how hard they are to get. Most sites who have really high standards for who they’re going to link to aren’t going to link to the usual crappy poker review subpages.

This dilemma has a couple of solutions. The easiest is to just get links from other sites pointing to your other pages, the ones with the real linkworthy content. The other solution is to create poker review subpages which are linkworthy in themselves. How do you do that?

Spend some time creating your poker review subpages. Research. Interview people. Link to other pages on the Internet with information about the poker site. Don’t just buy a $10 or $20 review from some writer looking for work on a poker affiliate forum. Pretend that you’re Woodward and Bernstein, and that you want your review of Full Tilt Poker to win the Pulitzer. If you put that kind of effort into your review of Full Tilt Poker, people will link to it without your having to ask.

What’s the best way to get PR (PageRank) with a poker site?

The best way to get PR (PageRank) to a poker site is the only way to get PR to a poker site: get links. There are plenty of ways to do this:

• Trade links
• Trade content for links
• Submit to directories
• Post in forums and include a link in your signature
• Post comments on blogs and include a link there

Getting links just isn’t nearly as hard as people make it sound. You should be able to get 10 or 20 links in an hour or two with a little effort. And most of the time, you can do pretty well and make a lot of money with just those 10 or 20 links, if they’re from good pages on good sites.

Is offering poker content in exchange for poker links an effective poker linkbuilding strategy?

Hell, yeah, offering poker content in exchange for poker links is an extremely effective poker linkbuilding strategy. Make guest posts on blogs. Post in poker forums that allow signature links. Contact webmasters and offer to write content for them. If you focus a little bit on new poker sites from new poker webmasters, you’ll have better results, and the links you obtain will grow in value as their sites improve over time.

What are the SEO ramifications of changing from .asp to .php?

Any time you change URL’s on a website, there are SEO ramifications. If you’ve structured your URL’s using a folder structure instead of a file structure, then you don’t have to change URL’s. No URL change = no SEO ramifications. Just changing the language you’re using behind the site shouldn’t affect your SEO though. It’s only if you have to change your URL’s that you’ll see SEO ramifications.

In other words, you should have a folder called /online-poker/ housing your content. That’s what you link to. It doesn’t matter if index.asp becomes index.php inside that folder, because the address stays the same. The wrong way to structure your URL’s is to use online-poker.asp, because when you change the page to online-poker.php, you get big-time SEO ramifications. And they’re not good SEO ramifications, either.

Should I have multiple Google accounts for multiple sites?

My rule of thumb is to not doing anything in an attempt to deceive Google. The only reason I can think of for having mutliple Google accounts for multiple sites is to deceive Google into thinking that the sites are owned by different entities so that the links will be more valuable or won’t get filtered or whatever. My SEO strategy is strong enough that I don’t have to worry about such things. Your poker SEO strategy should be that strong too, and there’s no reason for it not to be.

If you’re asking this question innocently, because you don’t know that you can have multiple sites under one Google account, then you’re not being deceptive. You just need to do a little more reading about how your Google account works.

Does poker content on a poker forum rank as well as poker content on a static poker site?

Poker content on a poker forum doesn’t usually rank as well on poker content on a static poker site. But it’s not BECAUSE it’s a forum post. It’s because most people don’t put any care into keyword selection on a forum post, and then they don’t put any care into the title of their forum post. They also don’t think about keyword repetition or keyword emphasis in their forum posts.

Poker content on a poker forum CAN rank as well as poker content on a static poker site, but you have to do the SEO work to make it happen.

My poker site dropped into oblivion? What should I do about it?

The first thing you should do is figure out WHY your poker site dropped into oblivion. If the site is still indexed, but the content isn’t ranking, then one or more of only a handful of things has happened:

• You changed something on your site.
• Someone else changed something on their site.
• The search engine changed something on the search engine.

You can figure out for yourself if you’ve made any changes on your site to trigger the change in rankings. If you haven’t done anything, then process of elimination tells you it’s one of the other two. It would be unusual but not impossible for a bunch of competitors to create a bunch of content that outranks yours, driving you lower in the search engine results. The other option is that the search engine has filtered you out or demoted your ranking for some reason.

The best approach to fixing this? Change something, even if it’s something small on the page. Then get another link to the page. Then write more content and publicize the new content. Usually the situation will right itself.

If you’ve done something wrong, and you know it (like buying a bunch of blog links and getting a -50 penalty), then fix what you did wrong and file a reinclusion request.

If you treat a poker forum just like a poker blog, can it still rank for anything?

Sure. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a forum platform to write a blog, or a blog platform to run a forum, or anything in between. What matters is whether or not the page is useful, relevant, and important. Usually being relevant to a phrase is as simple as using the keyword phrase on the page. Using a keyword phrase on a page repeatedly generally makes it more relevant. And a page is important and useful if other pages on the Internet link to it. Whether or not it’s a poker forum pretending to be a poker blog or vice versa doesn’t matter.

It’s about content. It’s all about content.

Are there any worthwhile keyword difficulty tools?

Yeah, there are two. The search engine that you want to rank in, and your brain. You need the search engine to see who else is trying to rank for your keywords, and you can gauge the difficulty of ranking by looking at the other sites that are ranking. And you need your brain to actually think about what you see.

Most other keyword difficulty tools are useless. They’re a novelty, like x-ray glasses or something.

What is a PR 6 poker text link worth?

You shouldn’t be buying or selling PR 6 poker text links. Shame on you.

Just kidding. There are multiple factors involved in judging the worth of a PR 6 poker text link. For example, is the PR 6 poker text link going to be located in the middle of a paragraph of content above the fold in the main content section of the site, or is the PR 6 poker text link going to be located in the footer or the sidebar? Is the PR 6 poker text link going to be listed along with a dozen or twenty other sites, most of which are obviously buying text links in the sidebar of all the other sites selling links online? Or is it going to be on a page with 2 or 3 other text links to good quality, useful sites which aren’t obvious linkbuyers?

Will the PR 6 poker text link generate traffic to your site, and if so, how much? How much is your average visitor worth?

People would love for me to say that a PR 6 poker text link is worth $1000 a month, or that a PR 6 poker text link is worth $100 a week, or that a PR 6 poker text link is worth $10 a day. But the reality isn’t that simple.

Think, think, think.

Should I use rel=”nofollow” on my poker affiliate links on my poker site?

Using rel=”nofollow” on your poker affiliate links probably won’t hurt, but using rel=”nofollow” on your poker affiliate links probably won’t help you much either. It’s probably better to use rel=”nofollow” on your poker affiliate links than to not use it, and it’s not something that’s going to take a lot of effort on your part either. So go for it.

What are the best poker linkbuilding tips for beginners?

Here are the best poker linkbuilding tips for beginners:

• Poker Linkbuilding Tip #1 – Focus on creating linkworthy poker content. If your content sucks, your links will suck.
• Poker Linkbuilding Tip #2 – Don’t get involved in any kind of “link scheme”. If you’re not sure if it’s a good idea or not, then just skip it.
• Poker Linkbuilding Tip #3 – Don’t be afraid to trade a few links.
• Poker Linkbuilding Tip #4 – Directory submissions are a good way to get a few links starting out.
• Poker Linkbuilding Tip #5 – Certain types of content generate links just because of the type of content. There are link directories which focus on forums, for example, and other link directories which focus on blogs.

There are probably other great poker linkbuilding tips for beginners. But focusing on creating linkworthy poker content is always going to be the most important and best poker linkbuilding tip of all.

What are the best internal linking strategies for a poker site?

When you’re planning your internal linking strategies for your poker site, you should focus on what kind of site you’re running. With a poker blog or a poker forum, some of internal linking strategies are in place just because of the format you’re using. You should link back and forth between your content generously too. Don’t just reply on your blog software or your forum software’s default internal linking structure for your internal linking structure strategies.

If you’re designing a static poker site, then you should have internal links in your navigation, and you should organize your site into topics and subtopics. Then conduct your internal linking strategy accordingly. For example, if you have a site about “poker games”, you might have 10 subtopics in your menu bar, including “Texas holdem”, “Omaha poker”, “Seven card stud”, and so on. Then your Texas holdem page would navigate to your Texas holdem articles, which would all link to each other.

But then you should also crosslink across topics too. If you have an article in your Texas holdem section about “Texas holdem starting hands”, it makes perfect sense to link across to your “Omaha hi-lo starting hands” article from there. Some SEO experts recommend some kind of silo approach, but don’t limit yourself with your internal linking strategy. Link to and promote your content across your pages as much as it makes sense to do so.

How do you get multiple links to appear under your #1 listing in Google?

Multiple links under your #1 listing in Google are called “sitelinks”. If you want sitelinks to your site, the best strategy for getting them is to have your site organized into clear topics and subtopics. I use a folder structure and organize my site into topics and subtopics, and the sitelinks just seem to happen for me.

I’ll probably post more poker seo questions and poker seo answers later this month, but this should keep most busy reading for a little while.

I appreciate thoughtful comments, so leave yours.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Google, Poker Blog SEO, Poker Content, Poker Forum SEO, Poker Keyword Research, Poker Link Building . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.