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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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Hello everyone and welcome to yet another episode of SBC iGaming Daily Podcast, the Marketing Edition. iGaming Daily is presented by OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market. 56 % of the EGR Power 50 personalized player experience with OptiMove. And we have yet another special offer for you. OptiMove is offering new clients a free first month when you buy OptiMove.
For further information and claim the free month, please go to OptiMove .com slash SBC. Today I have a megastar of SEO world. If you haven't heard of her and you are some kind of specimen that doesn't follow SEO, we have Aleida Solis. I kindly ask her to introduce herself and then we go into the topic. Hello Ivana, how are you? I'm delighted to be able to share with you and the audience today. I'm an SEO consultant. I have been doing SEO since 2007.
I have my own SEO consultancy called O 'Reinti from where I advise some of the top brands in the world and also high growth startups. And I'm very happy to be able to share with the audience. I'm very, very looking forward to the conference too. And I feel that I am every week this year, like finding something new and different and exciting with SEO, even if I have been...
doing SEO for a number of years now. It's the never -ending updates, isn't it? Absolutely. Well, we are very, very happy to present Aleda with us because she will be main speaker on the casino bits this May. So if you want to educate yourself more on SEO, definitely come and join. I'll start right away. I'm doing SEO for 16 years now, and I don't remember such a crazy start of the year. Like, what the hell, Google? Right?
What do you think of this? What's going on? 100%. Well, I think that Go has been in this context that have pushed them to this point because there was literally no other way to react to what was happening. And let's go back to a year ago. We have LLMs, the boom of LLMs, everybody.
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started to leverage LLMs to create content at scale in many niches, trying to at some point even not even take care of the quality of the output. Also, almost at the same time, we had Google confirm that they were okay with AI generated content too. So at that time, at the time they were like, we already have systems in place in our algorithm and filters.
that we'll be able to catch whatever manipulation and low -level quality content created at scale, et cetera, et cetera. Fast forward, end of last year, we were able to see that that was not necessarily the case, that a lot of the updates that they had been releasing in the Q3, Q4 that were mainly focused to give more prominence to human -first content,
helpful content, high quality content in a way to, let's say, minimize the level of spam and unhelpfulness in search results. Haven't paid off that the results were not the quality that we all expected. And we saw more and more even main publications, the media started to reflect that too, to share how...
for many very important and sensitive queries, the quality of the results were not necessarily the ones that you could rely or that will provide the best user experience. So I understand that they were in this pressure that have made them to release at the same time this core update at the same time of a spam update, a spam action, manual action also two weeks ago when they, on March 5th, when they...
pretty much confirm all of this. And it's like they had this pressure to release and to react to all of this, let's say, buzz going on regarding the quality of the results. And I have to say something, right? I understand that Google was also not necessarily in the best position to react as they thought they could to so much spam and leveraging NLMs in particular.
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because they also had a lot of stuff going on in parallel, trying to react to LLMs in the first place as a new way to search, as a new paradigm in search. should we, how we should move forward with Bard, now Gemini, in order to be able to compete with ChatGPT and OpenAI and Bing, now with their own chatbot, now called Copilot. So they had that in parallel. They were also...
trying to sort out with the SGE tests, how to integrate that even further in their current search results and the impact that this could have not only in search behavior, but in their business model in the first place. So they have had a lot going on in the last year. So I can understand how this came to be at the end. And hopefully after almost two weeks now from the confirmation of the release,
we have started to see how there have been some shifts that should be positive. Let's see how it goes. Hopefully all of this will end up, will end not only the manipulation of AI at scale, a lot of low quality programmatic, but also Parasite SEO that even in the iGaming sector have been happening quite successfully in results. Indeed. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, when Google said that AI content is okay, my first thought was being an SEO, knowing lots of SEOs being, you know, manipulative, thinking, my God, this is going to be manipulation at scale. We all going to just jump on it. And I think you saw it coming too, because I remember you speaking at Brighton and saying, these AI tools are amazing, but don't replace humans. This is unethical. Are you surprised that Google didn't see that they didn't start with more filtration from the start thinking,
people just going to abuse it. I mean, I knew it. I'm sure you knew it. I think everyone I ever spoke in SEO knew that we're going to abuse it. Do you think Google could have handled this better from the start rather than just giving up this kind of spring cleaning? Yeah. You know what? Realistically, I believe that they probably never saw come in so many SEOs and not only SEOs, but also very well -established business. Amrass, do you remember in summer, in the summer last year,
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All of this CNET and very well -known publishers being caught using AI, overusing. Let's say, I mean, I am the first to evangelize about how we can make the most and leverage AI in a way that is actually helpful while minimizing the risk, right? But it seems that all of this media companies were just waiting for this to happen to cut the costs.
that they had and go all in in a, let's say, unsupervised way or really lazy way that at the end of the day, it ended up only harming. But I have to say something, right? It's not only these more reliable players that at the end of the day ended up doing this that I believe that we're not necessarily that aware that this will be done in such a way and at this scale, but also we have been seeing more and more, especially if you pay, if you...
you pay attention to SEO Twitter, you will see all of this increase of niche affiliate websites, sort of players that it reminds me you have been also doing SEO for a while, like 10 years back, even before Penguin, right? And Panda, like all of these niche sort of players, like talking about easy manipulation, selling curses of programmatic in a very...
a low value way and showing screenshots of, take a look at how this works nowadays. So it's still doable, things like that. And I'm like, yeah, it will work until it doesn't. And it seems that now a lot of these websites were the first to getting no index by Google manual action a couple of weeks ago. But in any case, it seems that, yeah, they probably thought that there was no way this...
to happen at the scale that it did. But yes, SEO is SEO at the end of the day, and all of sort of players in our sector, and it is how it is. True, I mean, we have lots of SEO criminal minds here, and they came up with fascinating things such as Parasite SEO. I mean, it just became so predominant in Serb last few years, and it's huge in iGaming. Is it huge in other niches as well? Yes, yes. So actually, it took my attention because...
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I remember when I was preparing my deck for IGB affiliate, I went through many of the core queries in the online casino sector. Best online casino USA or even just best online casino UK or yeah, many variations of online poker, playing, et cetera.
I was in shock to see how many very prominent publications were covering this topic and with listings, with supposed reviews, let's say. But yes, that it was very evident for me that, they have a collaboration going on. It's very obvious that there's an affiliate scheme here and there. So it was very, very obvious that it was not only the...
best sneakers that was like, and this sort of like e -commerce sort of affiliate activity that these publications were very well known to have. And the coupons ones too, that were also very well known to have, but that now they were all in also, even with iGaming. And it blew my mind because these were publications that, I mean, they have journalists on the streets that they...
are meant to be reliable on as proper journalism with all of what that connects with a reliable audience. And so it really, truly shocked me to see how they were leveraging all what there is out there in order to make money nowadays. iGaming is like that. We're going to abuse anything. I mean, it worries me. But true is that so far in this spring cleanup of the update,
What I see is yes, AI content disappearing, but parasite actually growing. I monitor this a lot, especially the English speaking markets. And I saw even LinkedIn is actually being abused. You would have a LinkedIn post with lots of goalings. I mean, I think at least LinkedIn can be responsible and say, okay, let's not do this. And I don't understand how Google is going to deal with the parasite SEO because it's difficult to spot. I mean, if you...
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add a whole subdomain such as jackpot .rtl .de. Yes, very easy to spot. If you maybe add a whole sub folder to a website that had nothing to do with casino, suddenly there is a casino, easy to spot. But all these posts, I don't think they are actually even possible in the next year to clean up. 100%. I mean, it's much easier if there's a clear pattern and divide in the properties of new content with a new meaning.
completely publish at a high scale in this new area of the website. But if it is all blended with existing content and you mentioned LinkedIn and it has been very obvious for a while that if you search for even best SEOs, even like it is an article or a post from LinkedIn published a few months back, the one ranking in the top three or something like that. And it's like, and this is like the typical
list that is a copy paste of, I don't know, dozens of articles that have been published with, again, the same name. So it's a rehash thing, not even original, not even insightful, not even accurate because many of the people list that are not even SEOs anymore and they haven't been for a number of years. So, and it's so obvious, but again, you mentioned LinkedIn. LinkedIn has actually been pushing for AI content.
with an internal program that incentivizes professionals to tweak and complete and complement the answers of the AI -generated content to make it, let's say, more relevant, more accurate, more useful. So yes, they have piggyback on this to create content, too, at the end of the day. There should be a reaction. I have been taking a look at results from Google in the last few days.
And indeed we can see in Systrix that reflects this very quickly with their search performance index or search visibility index, sorry. And you can see how Reddit has gone a little bit down. Quora has been a little bit down. LinkedIn shockingly hasn't been going down as I would have expected anyway. But there are other prominent players too, retailers in the US. Actually I included that yesterday in the newsletter. And linking to...
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I screenshot up the before and after and positions and the top keywords for which they have dropped in the last week. And you can see that realistically, many of these keywords are very, very broad. So for example, kitchen or iPhone or laptop or casino, right? Like realistically, even if you have the most accurate review of online casinos in the US or worldwide, experts,
written and validated with surveys or whatever ratings you want, so real reviews. This is not the article to rank well for this broad term that will have this ambiguous intent and will need all of this sort of like different type of takes and approaches in order to fulfill or try to fulfill. So my guess is that right now from what I am seeing,
is Google pretty much ranking a lot of the content that was very obvious that they were ranking because of the authority of the sites of the domains where they were at that were indeed relevant, but not necessarily that relevant for such a broad topic term, pretty much head term for a whole area. And I'm very happy to see that. I expect to see that more.
And hopefully they will put a little bit of better weight and balance on how they give visibility and prominence in certain topics, especially the broader ones, the best of X, best of Y, top Y, top X, or even the head term, because a lot of very prominent websites were ranking in a way that look, Reddit might be great for EGC.
in many circumstances, many scenarios, but for certain very broad topics. And that also require in -depth know -how, comprehensive information. And that type of UGC is not the one that you will expect to see there. So for example, for best SEO roadmap or how to do SEO, like literally a thread in one of the Reddit subreddits about SEO,
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are not necessarily going to be the best in class content to fulfill that need for the user. On the other hand, learningseo .io, for example, this website aggregation that I have, with resources, with articles, with free tools, with top tips of SEOs, with FAQs, that on the other hand, could be a good candidate to show in top positions, right? So I expect that Google, let's say, start...
And they have told us that we should wait for a month for this release to properly take place because it will take a little bit longer than usual. So I expect that they put a better weight on all of that because authority is not absolute. It depends on the context. It depends on the particular topic. And hopefully there's a little bit of more blended approach in that regard. I mean, it is scary.
And therefore I'm going to ask you, what do you think is ahead for 2024? What we should still expect because we knew Google is going to do something about parasite or AI. We didn't think it's going to be this savage. So what do you think is going to be for 2024? And obviously we'll delve much more into this in the Casino Beats Conference, but just closing thoughts here. What would be 2024 like? At this point for Google is about the reputation and survival and showing that they are not
let's say being held back by an old take on search and they are still at the top of their game even if they might not necessarily be, but they need to show, right? So I expect that this wave of spam and manipulation going on is properly tackled in the next few months because it has become...
become not only obvious within the industry, but it has been reflected in the media nowadays and they have a reputation to keep up with to the outside world on one hand. And then on the other hand, because if they don't do this, unfortunately, more and more we'll see the other option of using LLMs and chatbots as more appealing and even accurate. And the risk of social platforms.
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to be used more and more for search purposes. TikTok, Instagram, we have seen how for many different industries, they are now used more prominently. And also for newer generation, for Gen Z audience, using more and more to look for things that we were now using Google for, right? So they definitely need to do not only a better way on tackling.
low quality content in the SERPs, they will do, but also the real challenge for them, I believe, should be, and I think that we should expect more of this happening, this extra layer of two things. Social content, would you see, but in a way that is much better than we have seen before, because I'm pretty sure that at this point they acknowledge that just showing Reddit threads everywhere and in the SERP features forums and...
the forums are features is not enough, or groups, forums and groups or something like that is called, is not enough and not necessarily what people expect, but a better blend with perspectives that is only shown for very specific queries at the moment and in their own top. Now they have said that it's going to call forums. I don't know if it is because they're seeing that realistically it's much harder for them to access social content and they need to rely more on the socialized.
open web information that there is out there. But in any case, I do expect more firsthand content, expert -led content, more forums, hopefully more niche expert -focused forums, not generic ones with spam taking more visibility. I will double down on video. We have seen the continuous evolution of YouTube.
visibility in the SERPs, also with the video carousels too. I see more and more how users make the decision on, let's say this external platform, because they don't believe anymore the guides that they see ranking at the top of the SERPs because they are full of affiliates and that's pretty much it. But putting a face of a real expert behind your content, behind the decision -making, even if...
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there's an affiliate scheme or an incentive, commercial incentive to sell that information. If they see that you're reliable, if you see that you know your stuff, if you see that you have been comprehensive in your analysis, that should eliminate or minimize at the very least the concerns about the quality and reliability on what you say. I will say that should be the way to move forward. And I expect that Google has realized this at this point.
point and to see more of this in the SERPs in whatever area, to be honest, even if with my clients are very commerce oriented, transactional oriented, this has been my recommendation since a while ago. So if you really want to keep, let's say that visibility, that will be the way to move forward, not only in your content, in your existing content, but also in, if you want to expand further, this is how we like to expand because...
That is the way that Google will be able to minimize the automation that is going on in a very prominent way. And then on the other hand, to be able to keep up and compete with the reliability that social platforms provide to users that they haven't been able to provide until now. Thank you very much. Wow, that is full of information. So basically, keep doing your good SEO work. Try to look into being more creative with your content. Don't just rely on a written word. And we will discuss much more of this in Casino Beats.
Alida, thank you so much for joining us. This was amazing. I have learned once again, a lot from you. I will wish you a wonderful day and thank you for joining us. Really, really appreciate it.