Party Poker was knocked out of Google searches after the search engine ruled that bwin.party was artificially generating inbound links In April. That violates Google’s rule and the PartyPoker brand disappeared from searches using the word “poker.”
However, PokerScout, which publishes a weekly Scouting Report, has found the Party Poker brand is gaining ground in searches using other search terms, but is still far behind where it was.
According to the PokerScout report, bwin.party and PartyPoker formerly appeared in each of the top 20 for major search terms regarding poker. After the penalty, the site dropped to only eight of the 20.
PartyPoker has been able to improve from 15th to 14th for the search term “internet poker” after being as high as third prior to the penalties. Under the search “play poker,” PartyPoker has improved to 17th place, the website reported.
The Google penalties have also hurt PartyPoker’s positioning in PokerScout’s rankings of the busiest online poker sites in terms of cash game volume. PartyPoker now ranks fourth on PokerScout.
