Day Trip Media: Some Things That P*** Me Off About Gaming Webmasters

Monday, 21 April 2008

Some Things That P*** Me Off About Gaming Webmasters

One thing I've learnt the last couple of years working in the online gambling and gaming industry is it can be a pretty seedy place. I was spoilt working at the BBC, I realise this. No commercial concerns, an inclusive culture that embraced the internet and working to a certain level of editorial accurateness and balance. I've carried a lot of that ethos into what I do know, but as I've found in time, there's very few out there who'd concern themselves with such things in the furtherance of their own personal agendas.

Away from the warm and comfy world of public service web site and content creation, it's a cut throat world. The area is rife with dirty tricks, shady techniques and questionable practices, and coming up against them on a daily basis both serves to anger me and further entrench my view that I should avoid such techniques in my own day to day work. Here's some of the things that really succeed in hacking me off when it comes to gaming and gambling related websites, and an explanation of why they piss me off.

The main focus of these techniques is to try and massage the search engines and gain preferentially rankings in the results for highly lucrative gambling related terms. I'm assuming a certain level of understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) with this post, but if you don't consider yourself interested in SEO, it's worth a read as it will help raise your awareness levels.

It's also worth noting that not only are these things annoying to me as a webmaster, they are also annoying to me as a web user. I think many out there not only like to underestimate the visitor, they do it on purpose. A lot of the things that I've listed also create real usability issues and frustrations that in the end could be counter-productive to what you aim to achieve, which should always be the trust and respect of your visitor.

Content Splogs And Link Building Reviews

I'm increasingly seeing splogs (spammy blogs) around the web, with really obscure domain names and posts on everything from bingo to pay day loans and viagra. Obviously some people out there are picking up expired domains with some backlinks and PR and putting auto-generated / scraped content on them. What's worse is I've seen a number of big bingo companies (let alone affiliates) using these sort of blogs to gain backlinks with paid for reviews. I'm naming no names, but you know who you are.

Content Usage With Backlinks Stripped Or Omitted

WTF doods! Oh, now this one really pisses me off. Now, I do like to get backlinks, I do want my sites to rank well after all. Given the difficulty of getting quality links for gambling related sites on authority sites, I will sometimes put a press release out about a new section or video or whatever. The aim is that someone will pick it up and supply quality backlinks for your trouble.

However, gambling webmasters are a pretty selfish bunch. They like to use your content, or your press release, or even report on your press release to make content for their site. But will they provide a link back for it? Will they flip, because if they do that, they might just give your site a little boost above theirs in the rankings. Don't worry that users may want to follow up or find it interesting, linking out is a bad, bad thing.

There are some sites out there who will also say what site they got their 'story' from, even going as far to name it or print the URL, but link to it? No! Some pretty big online bingo sites do this routinely. It's my belief that actually, this practice could cost you rankings rather than actually improve them. Why, well, Google looks at things like outgoing links, and if it sees your site has no external links to anything else in the field, what's to say they don't flag it as a sign of a lack of quality?

Content Theft That Isn't Content Theft

This one is a bit more difficult to prove, but it's a common problem for sites that thrive on creating their own voice and standpoint. What I mean is that sites will take a topic, or standpoint, or viewpoint that you've taken, and emulate it on their own site. They don't so much copy the content you've written, but copy the general editorial standpoint and spin their own content from that standpoint. I suppose it's flattering in a way, but annoying none the less.

Posts That You Can't Comment On

I've already said that most gambling related webmasters are a fairly selfish bunch, and this is no better illustrated by the number of gaming blogs that don't feature comments from their users. Worse still, they give the option of allowing users to make posts whilst never letting them go live. I've seen it on hundreds of blogs in the field, some from big companies that should know better.

Why does this one piss me off so much? Well, being the pedantic sort of chap I am, if I see an inaccuracy, or just want to comment and add my own opinion on a post I will do it (at great personal time expenditure.) Nothing gets my goat up more than submitting a lengthy comment to a blog only to never see it published. I could point to several major sites in the field that allow comments to be posted but don't actually have any user comments on any of their posts, but I won't.

Review Sites That Don't Publish Bad Reviews

I've also tested this out on some sites that claim to take user reviews of online bingo sites. I've submitted a range of reviews from good to bad, and guess which ones didn't see the light of day? That's right, reviews saying 0 out of 5, poor site, etc. Why? Well, if you're searching for a review on a site and end up on an affiliate site, are you more likely to click on their affiliate link to the said site if it's surrounded by bad reviews? I think not. This takes us neatly on to this next point.

It's All Good

I see this one all the time, you'll see a list of mini-reviews of online bingo sites, and they all have five or four stars next to them. All of them. Without fail. It tells me this:

We've Never Actually Visited These Sites

But we're more than happy to recommend them to you to go try. Some of the sites I've played at have been horrendous. When I've reviewed them I've gone into this in detail, and marked sites down to really low ratings as a result. The surprising thing is, people will still go and play at the sites even if you give them a bad write-up. One site I described as a polished turd has continued to get lots of traffic from my less than favourable review, and I've at least been able to sleep easy knowing I'm not misleading everyone.

But, as well as being a selfish bunch, many gaming webmasters are lazy as well. They'd sooner take the review copy provided by the actual online bingo site itself. Can you imagine such things? Would you think such a review would be balanced, accurate and less than positive? Of course not and guess what, many web users are pretty clever and able to figure out when a review isn't a review - so why waste everyone's time?

We're The Best Because We Say So

Oh, now this one really, really gets me hot under the collar. Sites that proclaim themselves 'The Best' or 'The Biggest' or the 'Most Popular.' You've seen it, you land on a three page affiliate spam site with a page full of colourful reviews, less than accurate information and a cut and pasted article on bingo from Wikipedia. And there it is, in the opening sentence or emblazoned across the banner, those very same epithets 'The Best' or 'The Biggest' etcetera, and are they? Not in the slightest, but if you tell everyone you are, they may just believe you.

And it's not just the little sites that do this, there are quite a few gaming providers that believe people fall for such flannel and do such things, when in fact they're anything but. I would never call any of my sites biggest or best, it's not up to me to decide. I'd like to think that they are, but then the wise and rational person in me says, 'they're not really, they could be so much bigger and better than they are,' and I end up all feeling like I've deluded myself.

News Sections That Don't Feature News

A number of sites have news sections that are anything but. I consider my news sections more blogs than official news, I only ever really react to stories I see in the wider press and I freely admit this limitation at the sites involved. That said, I see a number of sites featuring regularly in the Google News results that don't actually carry any news, they merely report on stories already featured in the wider press with little or no extra value.

Some never link out to other content and some do little better than regurgitate winners news from the likes of The National Bingo Game, with no additional value added content to merit them. It's understandable that a lot of us will be writing about the same events and news stories on our sites and their are times I'm guilty of doing the same, but my hope is that some of my personality and interest in the game comes out in my posts. Others seem content just to report on stuff that isn't really important or relevant, merely as a means of bulking out their content.

Sites Fronted By Fake Females / Fictional Characters

It's worth remembering that many sites about bingo in particular are run by men, yet seem to have some mystical female front person with an exotic sounding name or cartoon like character picture as their spokesperson. I wonder why that is and more importantly how many of them do you actually believe have an actual real woman behind them? Personally, I think it's fake, it's not necessary and frankly insulting to your users, like many of the things I've highlighted here today.

I've put my name to everything I've done at my websites as I believe it helps establish a relationship with my visitors. I wish some others out there would be that transparent about what they're doing. It can only help to increase trust in the long run.

And Finally...

Wow, you still here? That went on way longer than I was intending, but it cheers me up to get it off my chest. You might be wondering what my goal is for complaining about this stuff. In the end, it's because I believe if you don't mention it, no one will realise it's a problem. There's also an element of frustrated web user that wants a voice. I spend a lot of time visiting these sites and at times, my blood pressure goes through the roof at the rot I see.

For me I'd rather see the space filled with 10 or 20 quality sites about the game than a 1000 rubbish sites that don't add any value other than lining affiliates pockets. There are very few sites out there that I think offer great content around gaming, and that's a real downer. Like most things in life (TV for instance) this low grade filler makes it difficult to spot the real gems in the big bubble of stuff out there. Personally, I find that real shame and hope that one day things get better.

Posted by Dio Bach at 11:14

2 Comments:

Jason Dale said...: Some good points there David, or though you could do with a chillout session or two now ;o)

I'd hope that we provide a decent service across all our sites - but there's tendency to back your own things over another, so I guess that means any reviews will be biased.

We do have a 'female character' website - Penny Bingo - but it's stated in the About Us page that it's a fictitious character... the idea being at the time to do something tongue in cheek when another more famous 'female character' exists who is in fact a male ex-affiliate manager.

And that is one point you do miss out!

There does seem to be a trend for bingo sites to be competing with their affiliates. I guess it's the reverse of affiliates picking up white labels, but one site I've seen recently from one major bingo site isn't much good.

However it does concern me that a lot of stuff affiliates are doing is being seen by bingo operators and then used for their own purposes.

In terms of content I've had stuff lifted from one site onto probably the biggest bingo site. The key there is maintain your own writing style and not rely on the press releases.

Anyway if there's anything on any of our sites, I'm happy for you to point em out.; 21 April 2008 14:51
Dio Bach said...: Hey Jason, I'm feeling perfectly chilled now. ;)

Actually, I didn't realise you had a female character at yours - and I think I know the one you mean it's based on, if I'm on the right base. There are another 3 or 4 of these that I'm thinking about in the fake female stakes, and probably some others I hadn't spotted.

There's always going to be a lot of similar stuff on sites about such a narrow subject, I think having your own style and way of addressing it is one of the few things you can do to actually stand out.; 21 April 2008 15:14