SEO Tracker: Partypoker bucks the trend, leading the market despite being second for high-volume keyword

Partypoker has taken top spot in the search results for online poker, despite ranking second for one of the biggest keywords in the igaming sector.

The brand leads the market ahead of long-time leader PokerStars, having seen significant improvements in rankings across the 98 biggest keywords in the industry, even though PokerStars still holds the position one ranking for the term “poker”.

Not only is the keyword “poker” the biggest keyword by search volume in the poker market by quite some distance (with almost twice the search volume as the next-biggest keywords in the sector), it is one of the biggest in the igaming sector as a whole (with roughly the same search volume as “casino” and only bettered by “bingo”). However, because the poker keyword market is significantly smaller, a number one ranking for “poker” has invariably been enough to secure market dominance in the search results.

Partypoker has achieved this share of the search results by taking top spot for other sought-after terms such as ‘poker play’, ‘online poker’ and ‘poker online’, showing the strength of a search marketing strategy that looks beyond the main, high-volume terms.

These new first positions, among other improvements, has seen partypoker’s organic visibility increase by an estimated 2,250 clicks since October 2020. This is enough to see it overtake PokerStars, which has lost an estimated 6,833 clicks during the same period.

PokerStars previously held top spot for the three terms that partypoker now occupies, but this does not tell the full story of the traffic they have lost despite maintaining their ranking for ‘poker’ searches. The largest loss of traffic has come from ‘poker play’, with the estimated clicks received from this search term alone dropping by 2,639 over the last seven months. Lower rankings for various niche terms such as ‘Texas Holdem’ have also contributed significantly to the overall loss of organic traffic.

Overall, PokerStars has gone from ranking in the top three for 59 of the keywords in our analysis to just 35. These top positions are crucial and even lower volume search terms can make a large difference if there is a dip in rankings across the board.

The growing influence of free poker sites

Behind these two companies fighting for visibility with the highest volume terms, we can see an interesting trend emerging, with the next-most visible brands both being ‘free-to-play’ poker sites; 247freepoker.com and Zynga Poker. These sites are both generating considerably more traffic than established names such as Sky Poker, Paddy Power and Betfred.

While there were signs of this trend when we last looked at the market in October 2020, these sites have gone from strength to strength and are serious players in the online poker market. This is perfectly demonstrated by the fact that it is 247freepoker.com that finds itself behind only partypoker in the rankings for ‘poker games’ and ‘poker play’, thus also moving ahead of PokerStars for a key term that will bring in players looking to spend real money while playing.

Along with Zynga Poker ranking third and fourth for ‘poker games’ and ‘poker’ respectively, this represents a real and sustained shift in traffic away from traditional industry heavyweights towards these free sites. Interestingly, we can also see two affiliate sites in the shape of cardplayer.com and pokerlistings.com, meaning that out of the 10 sites with the most organic traffic in this market, only six of them are pay-to-play operators.

It is possible that this trend has emerged from the periods of lockdown over the last year, particularly this winter, where people will have been looking for free pastimes, but the prominence that 247freepoker.com and Zynga Poker now have within the rankings suggest that this might be a trend that is here to stay.

Full Tilt looks to recover from setback

One notable absentee from this month’s chart is Full Tilt, which has suffered a dramatic loss of organic traffic over the last six months, going from having the third largest organic visibility in the market with an estimated 4,622 clicks to only receiving 285 clicks. In addition to this, the number of keywords the company ranks for has more than halved from 87 to 41 terms, with only 10 of these being first page rankings.

As we’ve seen that this is an industry where strong rankings for a few key terms can transform a company’s fortunes, Full Tilt will be hoping to turn this around and again challenge its competitors – free or otherwise – for the terms that have the greatest impact on visibility.