PokerStars loses search rankings ... Google penalty or web design snafu? (August 31, 2008)
Google has apparently imposed a stiff penalty on PokerStars, costing the world's number one
poker site its top rankings for many major search terms. The reason for the penalty, which was imposed some time last week, remains unknown.
The effect of the decision can be seen in PokerScout's new
search engine results tracker.
PokerStars has lost its top rankings for many
high-volume search terms, including poker, one of the most frequently searched terms on the Internet. Other search
phrases in which PokerStars has lost ground include online poker, free poker, holdem and even the PokerStars
name itself.
In each case, the PokerStars.com homepage appeared on the first page of search results
one week ago, often with a very high placement, but now has dropped out of the top 100 results.
The PokerStars.net homepage seems to have suffered the same penalty, dropping from the number one
result for "free poker" to nowhere in the top 100.
The site's other pages have suffered a lesser penalty, or none at all. The PokerStars WCOOP
page and a generic page on poker games have dropped more than 30 places in the rankings for
online poker and poker respectively, falling from their enviable top-five spots to near oblivion. The
poker games page has kept its rankings for other search terms, however, as has a sub-page on Texas Hold'em.
The reason for the penalty, and its possible duration, are unclear.
The search giant typically does not disclose the reasons behind its enforcement actions, or even
announce that a penalty has been imposed. The offending site and the public at large are left to
wonder what transgression against the
Google webmaster guidelines
has been committed.
The move seems to be part of a wider crackdown on poker-related websites. In recent weeks,
several sites have been penalized by Google,
including PokerSourceOnline, Cardschat, CompatiblePoker and a number of poker blogs.
Speculation in those cases has centered on the buying and selling of links, a practice commonly used
to boost search engine rankings by making a site appear more popular. Google frowns on link buying
unless technical measures are used to ensure that the link is disregarded by the search engine.
With its heavy investment in online and offline marketing, and a large existing customer base,
PokerStars is not as dependent on search
traffic as some of the other sites that have been sanctioned. Nevertheless, the decision is
likely to have an impact on the bottom line. According to Google, the four search phrases featured in PokerScout's
search engine results tracker alone account for nearly 15 million searches per month, and
until recently PokerStars ranked highly for all of them.
Having made an example of the world's largest online poker site, it seems unlikely that Google
will stop there. Other sites that have clawed their way to the top of the search engine rankings
using questionable tactics are now left to wonder whether they will be next.
UPDATE:
Since this article was written,
the Poker Affiliate Programs forum has been buzzing with speculation over a number of web design
errors allegedly made by PokerStars last week. The "penalty" may in fact be self-inflicted, either by mistake
or by internal sabotage. Some posters claim that a noindex tag was added to the PokerStars.net
homepage, effectively committing search engine suicide. That would be an inexplicable misstep for a
site that worked very hard to achieve its high rankings. (The tag has since been removed.)
Other speculation centers on such web arcana as nofollow tags and duplicate content due to a failure
to redirect. While more subtle, these mistakes would not be expected from webmasters as seasoned
and skilled as those employed by PokerStars.
Assuming the various errors are corrected quickly, PokerStars may very well regain its place in the
Google rankings in a matter of days or weeks. Updates will be found on
PokerScout's
search engine results tracker.