This is a run through of our link planning tool. its a bit like Link research tools , except it's in excel, so its very easy for us to manipulate the data to give us more insight into a set of link profiles.

1. LinkPlanner Process
How to analyse and plan your link building

2. Pick your keywords
Put 50 relevant keywords
into the share of search
tool.
With Google keyword
finder, get local search
volumes and cost per click
data.
Keywords to get
share of search

3. The tool scrapes google SERPS
The tool queries
google so there
isn't a ‘filter
bubble’ i.e. no
personalised
content

4. Results are shown on a pivot table
The formula is:
CPC x VOL x Rank X No. of
Keywords
This gives us meaningful
data showing who has
greatest share of search
over a set of keywords.
The spammers are doing
well…

5. Take the top domains you care about
It’s important to put the domains in order of
share of search to make meaningful
comparisons later on.
If you are looking at SERPS, the scraper will
take the top 10 results for a keyword and
show them in order of ranking.
Link planner can look at specific URL’s or
whole domains.
For this example, were looking at URL’s
because looking at i.e. casino.Ladbrokes.com,
rather than Ladbrokes.com makes the data
clearer.

6. Why we trust Majestic TrustFlow
We took 400 randomly chosen .uk sites from Majestic’s 1,000,000 top sites by backlink count and got the total
search traffic figures from SEMrush for each of these domains. We then got the Majestic TrustFlow and CitationFLow
metrics for the domains and plotted the results. (Organic traffic on a logarithmic axis. The black line is the
exponential trend line).
Conclusion: This data shows that TrustFLow is a predictor of traffic volumes 75% of the time, whereas CitationFlow is
a predictor of traffic only 61% of the time. This is why we use Trustflow as our core site metric.

7. Lets start our analysis
Were looking for patterns that give us guidance on what we should do if we want to rank in the ‘casino’
keyword landscape.
Our underlying assumption with spammers who rank is that they know how to game Google’s algo.
Unfortunately, we have lots of spammers, so it’s fairly easy to analyse what they are doing differently to
rank in such a competitive segment.
For operators, it’s a case of understanding why those with the biggest share of search, rank, whilst
accounting for what lessons we can take from spammers.

8. Overview of domains
This is an overview of domains, biggest share of search at the top. SkyVegas has a lot of site wide links.
Conclusions so far: Sitewide links may not be so toxic after all.

9. Backlink growth over time
Growth of new links over time. Interestingly the spam site Onlinecasinotop.co.uk had gone from no links to
most new links in March. The most aggressive link acquisitions come from the must successful spammer and
32red.
Conclusions so far: Brands (apart from 32red) are far more conservative about link growth than the
spammers.

10. Cumulative growth of links
When seen in cumulative view, 32Red have been very busy. They are a huge outlier in this keyword landscape.
Amongst the brand sites, Casino.paddypower.com is amongst the lower end of the pack
Conclusions so far: 32Red is being far too aggressive on domain acquisition. Casino.Paddypower.com are in a nice
‘safe’ zone.
If you agree with ‘safety is in being the pack’ then it sensible to benchmark off those sites that have greatest share
of search and (within reason) least new domains (Paddypower & Gala Casino)

11. 32Red
Oops! That looks
like a penguin
2.0 hit!

12. Link growth over time: Non Cumulative, Tabular form
Onlinecasinotop did a ‘blast out’ of links and took share of search over a 6 week period.
Conclusions so far: Links ‘kick in’ within 4 – 6 weeks. 18 – 25 new domains a month is good for this segment.

13. Link growth over time: Cumulative, Tabular form
This is historic link data from majestic seo. 32Red have a huge legacy which in theory should help them, but as you
see it’s out of step with what the Google algo wants today. This is why onlinecasinotop.net is so interesting.
Conclusions so far: Having a big link history isn't necessarily a good thing.

14. Linking Domains by Trust Flow band
Here we see the referring domains from Majesticseo’s fresh index set out in bands using Majestic’s trust flow. Sites like
32red, Skyvegas and Casinobonusnodeposit5 (spammer) have far more linking domains in the upper ends of the scale
than Onlinecasinotop or Paddypower.
Conclusions so far: Winning links, from very high trust flow sites is great, but isn't a precursor to ranking.

15. Absolute linking domains x trust band & share of search
This is just another way of presenting the data. Casinobonusnodeposit5 has been very busy and seems to have taken the
opposite strategy to the other spammer onlinecasinotop.
Conclusions so far: Volume of links isn't that important.

16. Referring domains by percentage / band
This view of the data shows the percentage of linking domains per trustflow band. There is a common perception
that higher quality linking domains is better, but this does not seem to bear out here.
Conclusions so far: There are no clear patterns here…

17. Linking domains by percentage & Trustflow Band
When seen in
this way, the
brand sites seem
to have very
similar profiles.

18. Linking domains percent difference from average
Here we take the average number of linking domains and look at how much a domain deviates from the average
per trust band. It makes it easier to see which domains are strongest per band.
We have taken out onlinecasinodeposit5 out because its link profile is very distorting.
There is a definite pattern showing the biggest share of search phrases have less TrustFlow per band than the others.
Conclusions so far: Spending a lot of money to ‘get ahead of the average’ isn't a clever tactic for 32red. The 2 winning
sites prove this point.

19. Conclusions so far on ‘links’
The common thread with spammers is that they can rank from nowhere in about 6 weeks. They vary in the number of
links used and their quality i.e. onlinecasinotop uses relatively few and they are fairly low trustflow,
onlinebonuscasinodeposit5 uses far more links and of a far higher trust flow than almost anyone else, but does not win
on search share.
The common thread with the operators is that volumes of links and high trust flow isn't that important either. This is
positive because it shows that with good planning you can rank on casino phrases with relatively few links per month i.e.
18 – 25 good links.
Next is anchor text analysis.

20. Anchor text analysis
We assign a
classification to the
anchor text per domain.
This allows us to make
sense of anchor text
and inbound links.
The process typically
takes about 15 minutes.
‘Code’ is the
classification type we
use for each phrase.

21. Anchor text breakdown by domain
There is a hypothesis that too much exact anchor text is a bad thing, yet casino.paddypower.com have more 'exact'
than any other operator, but have balanced it with the greatest amount of 'brand' anchotext of any operator.
Conclusions so far: Anchor text with 'money' words are ok, as long as you balance it out with 'brand' words

22. Anchor text split out
All the ‘winning’
operators have similar
anchor text ratios
except for 32red who
appear to have a lot of
‘other’ anchor text.
Conclusions so far:
having lots of random
anchor text to look
'natural' does not help
you.

23. Consolidated anchor text split out
Operators typically have 55% of their anchor text as ‘brand’ or brand variant i.e. their URL as a link. The variable is
the ratio between ‘keyword’ and ‘other’.
Conclusions so far: Having a lot of ‘noisy’ links with random anchor text isn't going to help you much. It’s best to
focus on a 60% combination of brand and 40% combination of relevant keywords.

24. Consolidated anchor text breakout
Same data as before.
Interestingly, if you discount
‘other’ keywords, the
weighting on brand is huge.
Conclusions so far: If you have
to sit on one side of the fence,
its on ‘brand’
The anomaly is where you
have exact match domains
and so all your anchor text
becomes exact match.

25. Relevance of anchor text and title tags
By looking at the number of
times a keyword is found in
the title tags of pages for all
inbound linking pages, we
can assess the relevance of
linking pages.
Sites with a high instance of
keywords in the title tags
show high subject relevance.
Conclusion so far:
Relevance of content from
where a link is placed is not
important from an
algorithmic point of view.
onlinecasinotop.net proves
this point.
Onlinecasinotop.net
casino.paddypower.com

26. Overview conclusions from LinkPlanner
Overview comment. Either the Google algo is very comprehensive or very basic. Spammers prove that very diverse strategies get
them ranked and whilst you may think ‘the algo will get them’, these sites will generally rank until they have a manual penalty. This
proves they understand how to game the Google algo.
When brands are involved, it's about a combination of sustainability and prominence i.e. ranking and not being penalised by Google.
Since Google are vague about what exactly gets you a manual or algorithmic de-ranking, link strategies need to be conservative. It
also suggests that building your own private content network makes a lot of sense in certain contexts when both the risks and
rewards for brands are so high.
Key findings:
• There is a 6 week lag between dropped links and rankings.
• You can aggressively link and rank, but run a high risk of manual penalty
• Anchor text mix is fairly important with a weighting towards ‘brand’, which may explain why exact match domains still do well
because they get relevant anchor text and a ‘free pass’ on excessive use of exact match anchor text
• Content relevance of linking domains does not seem that important
• Which country you get links from does not dictate where you rank. Just set your territory in webmaster tools.
• On page relevance is very important.
• Dependent on strength a single page can rank for up to about 25 similar topic, core keywords.

27. Plan of action
For brands, sustainability and relevant share of search are key. So a sensible rule to employ is ‘plausible deniability’. This
means when your site is assessed, you will pass a ‘spam’ test.
Suggested actions:
Don’t have ‘cheap links’, they seem to be the target for Penguin 2.0. Spammers hack into sites for links, you have to get
creative, stay within your brand ethics and have plausible deniability.
Look at how to win links from strong non casino sites i.e. chambers of commerce, charities and so on. Do online PR /
sponsorship deals to drum up attention and thus links. Topical relevance is not that important.
Work within the natural limits of your segment. For ‘Online Casino’, it 18 – 25 new linking domains a month with a Majestic
TrustFlow of above 10 on your links.
Keep a heavy weighting on brand anchor text (60%+) and mix up exact match across at least 6 phrases. It’s important to have
‘natural’ looking anchor text that is in line with other competitors in your segment.

28. Appendix
• Screengrabs of ranking history for domains in question

29. Onlinecasinotop.net

30. Galacasino.com

31. Skyvegas.com

32. 32red.com

33. Onlinecasinos.co.uk

34. Casinobonusnodeposit5.co.uk

35. casino.paddypower.com
Our Searchmetrics account doesn’t give subdomain data, so we are using SEMrush data
here.

36. Grosvenorcasinos.com

37. Onlinecasinosukgamebestrx.co.uk