Little impact so far from Google search changes

A major change in Google’s mobile search algorithm, dubbed “mobilegeddon”, began its roll-out yesterday but so far it appears to have had minimal impact on major egaming operators.

The biggest change to Google’s search function since 2011 led to warnings that domains which are not optimised for mobile could be wiped from the top of search rankings.

But an eGaming Review google.co.uk search for “bet online” this morning found little difference between desktop and mobile first-page results.

The biggest winner appears to be Betfair, which moves from eighth place on desktop to sixth on mobile, but Ryan Murton, marketing manager and SEO specialist at Betfair, told eGR the changes had yet to make any significant impact.

“The egaming industry is already well-adapted for mobile,” Murton said. “Given that gaming revenues across the industry have a mobile penetration of above 50%, most operators have always had a mobile-friendly product.

“This is even higher on the sportsbook side of the industry, touching 80% in a couple of operators. The industry is well adapted for the changes,” he added.

But he warned that affiliates could be harder hit by Google’s tinkering.

“There are still a handful of affiliates that don’t have mobile-friendly websites, and these affiliates will suffer,” Murton said. “But given that SEO should be their number one marketing channel, they should have known about this for a very long time,” he added.

There is some consolation for those who have failed to prepare. The changes only affect searches from smartphones, and the update is done on a page-level basis, meaning that while operators can slide down the rankings, they won’t automatically lose an all-important page one position.