I made a redirect file tutorial blog post

[CorryC]

Why wouldnt those sites rank high for online poker? They should - they are the biggest online poker sites, and that is exactly what they are offering. How would Google look if Pokerstars (the biggest online poker site in the world) did not rank high for "online poker"?

I get what your saying here - but I agree with the post above, there Google is going to make sure sites like that rank high and there is no way around it.

[addaminsane]

once again, look deeper into that specific keyword and you'll see alot of affiliate lead sites that are not optimized on page well for "online poker", and don't have it in their domain name, etc.

Another great example is fulltilt poker ranking for "play poker online". a large part of them dominating this phrase is because the savvily have embeded this anchor text and link title into every default affiliate link setup. This just goes to show that they and other rooms know that affiliates are straight linking their sites, The anchor text serves no practical conversion power along with banners...if people click the links they click the banners, the text is there strictly as an seo tactic.

What do you mean Pokerstars should rank number 1 for online poker? The best online casino does not rank number 1 for online casino... Poker is one of the few affiliate industries where the venues and affiliate leads are dominating the most lucrative new sign-up keywords. These sites aren't getting as many natural links from everyday people with perfect anchor text as you think they are.

ideally a person searching online poker would end up at a good info site ran by an affiliate informing them with worthwhile info....
No site has a given right to rank well for a specific term, its all seo in Google.