Free iGaming SEO checklists & frameworks

Run this before you build or accept another link. It's how we keep affiliate profiles natural enough to hold rankings through a core update, not just look strong in a DR export.

• Map every referring domain to its genuine topical relevance, a niche iGaming or sports-media link outweighs a generic multi-topic blog every time.
• Keep branded and URL anchors in the majority (55–65%); keep exact-match commercial anchors under 10% so the profile reads as earned, not built.
• Screen every domain for E-E-A-T signals, named authors, real editorial standards, transparent ownership. YMYL trust is the whole game.
• Check anchor-to-page relevance: the target page must genuinely deserve to rank for the anchor's intent.
• Watch link velocity month over month, earned profiles grow steadily; unnatural spikes invite manual review.
• Audit the dofollow / nofollow mix, a realistic profile carries both; all-dofollow is a footprint.
• Disavow only what's provably harmful; reflexive disavowing discards authority you legitimately earned.

Tick all seven before you pitch, place or accept a guest post. Miss one and you've spent budget on a link that ages into a liability.

1. Real organic traffic, verify with an independent tool, not the site's own claim. DR without traffic is decoration.
2. Topical relevance to iGaming, sports or a defensible adjacent niche, with editorial standards that fit YMYL.
3. Indexation health, the site: count roughly matches the sitemap; no mass-deindexed sections.
4. Outbound-link hygiene, how many gambling links already sit on the domain, and to whom? A link farm dilutes everyone.
5. Content & author quality, human-written, bylined, edited. Would a reviewer trust the page your link sits on?
6. Traffic geography matches your target market, never accept India traffic for a T1 offer.
7. History check, Wayback plus a backlink-spike graph expose a dropped domain wearing borrowed authority.

The sequence we run on a new affiliate property to move from audit to durable rankings and AI citations, the compliance-first way.

• Weeks 1–2 · Technical & E-E-A-T foundation, crawl and fix the site, resolve Core Web Vitals, and ship author bios, editorial policy and trust pages.
• Weeks 3–4 · Topical map & content, build the hub-and-spoke map, publish the pillar and its first supporting pieces around real user intent.
• Weeks 5–6 · Authority & AEO, earn the first tier of relevant links and structure content so ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews can cite it.
• Weeks 7–8 · Measure & compound, track rankings, AI share-of-voice and conversions, then reinvest in the assets that keep paying off.