With Melbourne Cup around the corner we decided to do some SEO & link analysis on the popular race.
We did not complete analysis on official event websites or news domains.
For this analysis we took focus on Exact Ranking URLs, the analysis we completed on a site-wide basis was limited. The sites in our analysis are all brands so they have a diverse SEO profile with numerous metrics which would impact the domains.
We used the following seed keywords + variations for the analysis to locate websites which had good visibility for Melbourne Cup.
| Melbourne Cup | 60,000 |
| Melbourne Cup Betting | 2400 |
| Melbourne Cup Odds | 5400 |
| Melbourne Cup Tips | 3600 |
Now from these seed keywords we have located the 10 most popular domains with good visibility –
From these domains we have calculated the following metrics
– Social Media shares on each popular domain.
– Referring IP’s to a page level.
– Total Backlinks to the domain.
| No. | Target URL – Melbourne Cup Rankings | Domain Rating | Domains | Referring IP | Total Backlinks | Keywords URL | Traffic URL |
| 1 | https://www.justhorseracing.com.au/melbourne-cup/ | 58 | 144 | 103 | 75201 | 2411 | 34697 |
| 2 | https://www.punters.com.au/melbourne-cup/ | 55 | 33 | 37 | 2003 | 345 | 5757 |
| 3 | https://www.racenet.com.au/melbourne-cup | 55 | 23 | 22 | 275 | 609 | 5162 |
| 4 | https://www.ladbrokes.com.au/info/melbourne-cup/ | 62 | 28 | 31 | 88 | 1541 | 4246 |
| 5 | http://www.sportsbet.com.au/events/melbourne-cup | 59 | 58 | 60 | 217 | 1173 | 3191 |
| 6 | https://www.tab.com.au/racing-betting/horses/melbourne-cup | 58 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 1781 | 6928 |
| 7 | http://www.races.com.au/melbourne-cup/melbourne-cup-betting/ | 59 | 80 | 79 | 90 | 135 | 486 |
| 8 | https://ubet.com/resource/melbourne-spring-carnival/melbourne-cup | 55 | 8 | 8 | 569158 | 1408 | 7033 |
| 9 | http://www.bettingpro.com.au/subcategory/horse-racing/melbourne-cup-carnival/melbourne-cup/ | 48 | 20 | 18 | 42 | 687 | 1516 |
| 10 | http://www.racingbase.com.au/melbourne-cup/ | 32 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 571 | 423 |
– Quick SEO feedback for some of the sites ranking is to ensure you are running HTTPS site wide, Google came out in 2014 and noted you get a small boost. It is also advisable from a security point of view especially for users on Google Chrome. Gaming sites – Betting Pro, Racing Base, Races and even Sports Bet all have the potential to have lost visibility and traffic by not running site wide on HTTPS.
– Now as we can see Just Horse Racing, Lad Brokes, SportsBet, Tab and Ubet have the best visibility to each target URL for Melbourne Cup.
– Referring domain wise Just Horse Racing has by far the largest number of links pointing to the target URL over 144 links.
Now we need investigate further how each site is building/ acquiring links.
1. Just Horse Racing have many links coming from sites they own like Sports News.com.au & Racing Fans.
They have also targeted other methods such as using branded profile links and also targeted forums.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 103
Total referring domains Site Wide – 978
– Looking at overall keywords ranking and total links to the domain we see Just Horse Racing has over 978 total referring links with organic keywords ranking over 24,200+.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Owned property links, social profile links, images via link/ banner placement and higher quality directory placements.
2. Punters are targeting more high quality links they have several links from high quality news sites such as News.com.au, Herald Sun and others. Punters have also targeted content placements and online wiki sites for links.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 37
Total referring domains Site Wide – 1,310
– Looking at Punters we can see they have over 1,300 referring domains and over 103,000+ organic keywords currently ranking at a domain level.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide – News media site banner placement on sites like FoxSports, Herald Sun, Sponsorship based links, Content Placement based links and they have also made use of some digital PR based links.
3. RaceNet – Are targeting a range of different links including forums, directories and social bookmarking sites.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 22
Total referring domains Site Wide – 1,750
RaceNet has over 1,750 referring domains with organic traffic at over 362,000+.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Acquisition of links from their own property websites, sponsorship based links, content partnerships, corporate partner and affiliation links, sports team sponsorship and also several links from digital PR sources.
4. Lad Brokes – Are acquiring a good number of links back from affiliates who are using the banners to promote the product, they also have a number of placements from news websites.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 31
Total referring domains Site Wide – 2,180
– Lad Brokes has over 2,180 links int he profile and has over 91,00 organic visibility.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Large sport team sponsorship links (Broncos, NBL ect), Links from affiliate partners who are hosting banners, .org.au sponsorship links, brand owned property links and many others.
5. SportsBet – It seems that SportsBet is using someone to do some link acquisition for the most part the work does seem old from around 2013.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 60
Total referring domains Site Wide – 3,120
– SportsBet has over 3,120 referring domains to the website and they have over 189,000 organic keywords ranking. Sports Bet has dropped down in visibility in recent times.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Sponsorship based links from sites like NRL, Sponsorship with Chinese based websites to a large scale, Digital PR based links and many others.
6. TAB – Seems to have been acquiring links which are mainly from the UK market, from a targeting point of view this may not be wise. Some of the links acquired are also broken.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 14
Total referring domains Site Wide – 1,880
– Tab has over 1,880 referring domains to the website and currently has over 78,400 organic keywords rankings.
The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Sports team sponsorship based links, local club sponsorship links, links via affiliates who are promoting Sportsbet affiliate, digital PR and links via partners.
7. Races.com.au – has made micro sites for different races, from each of these racing micro sites they are linking back to the main target landing page for Melbourne Cup.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 80
Total referring domains Site Wide – 1,040
– Races has over 1,040 + referring domains with organic visibility of around 11,800 range.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Are links from their own network of sites which they have made for all races, they also have a number of scraper links overall they could potentially do more to acquire higher quality links.
8. Ubet is currently targeting links from larger sites such as Tatts they also have some great news placement on Huffington Post.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 8
Total referring domains Site Wide – 782
– Ubet has 782 referring domains pointing to the website with organic visibility of around 67,400 range.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – Is by using sponsorship, digital PR and other sources they should aim to use a .com.au domain for the Australian market and acquire more local links where possible.
9. Betting Pro seems to be using their own network of sites, they also seem to be using content placements and overseas gaming directories.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 18
Total referring domains Site Wide – 244
– Betting pro has 244 referring domains and over 22,900 organic keywords ranking on the domains.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – They have a network of branded sites they own, they are targeting directory placements and they have some content placements been used to acquire links.
10. Racing Base – Is currently targeting several content placements they also seem to be targeting content placements from UK based sites.
Total links to Melbourne Cup page – 7
Total referring domains Site Wide – 11
– Racing Base has 11 referring domains and 1,900 organic visibility.
– The main type of links they are building from a site wide point of view – They have a limited link profile with several links coming from content placements and from UK sites they could be doing more to acquire high quality links.
Overall Comparison data based on referring domains –
We can see the growth over time for the following domains noted below, as we can see SportsBet, Tab & LadBrokes are doing well over time from a referring domains point of view.
Overall from the analysis it shows that you do not have to be a huge brand to do well from SEO, Just Horse Racing does not spend multi-million dollar budgets on Sponsorships and adverting and they are doing very well from a SEO point of view.
– If your website is in need of SEO or Link Acquisition assistance in the gaming sector please get in touch today.
