Prenut

Many poker webmasters (myself included) oftentimes become preoccupied in getting topical links back to their sites. For poker sites people want poker links, for casino sites people want casino links, and for sports betting sites people want sports betting links. While it is good to get on topic back links, don't get stuck in the mode of only searching for on topic links, especially in the gambling industry. Branch out and look for links from other niches, as it will do nothing but help the overall profile of your site.

Why should you look for links that aren't related to your website? First of all there has never been any sort of requirement that all of your links must come from very similar sites. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting a link back from a golf site, a dating site, or a video game site for your poker site. As a matter of fact, these off topic links can help you just as much or more than on topic links. This is especially true in the gambling industry, as most sites that you can acquire links from don't have very good back link profiles. There are many reasons for this, one being that many sites don't link out to gambling sites, making it harder for gambling sites to build a solid back link profile. You can't use PRWeb any longer for gambling releases, it is harder to get listed on Dmoz and Yahoo with a gambling site, and many mainstream media outlets shy away from linking to gambling sites. It is much easier to find a non gambling site that has a Dmoz and Yahoo listing, a link from PRWeb, and multiple links from online magazines and newspapers. This means that is likely that these off topic sites are capable of passing more link weight your way, which means that it is likely to be a more helpful link.

You can also look for "similar" sites that aren't gambling sites. For instance if I was optimizing for poker sites for US players I might look for sites that are selling US flags, US Olympic team gear, or anything US related. These aren't poker sites, but they are related in a sense that are promoting US items, as is a US poker page. Links like these will help you.

I'm not suggesting that you get ALL of your links back from off topic sites, as this isn't true either. You aren't likely to pass a manual review if your profile consists of nothing but off topic links, but if you have a mix of on and off topic links you shouldn't have a problem. Think outside the box and get a leg up on your competition.