What to check on a gambling publisher before you buy a link

Gambling is one of the hardest niches for link building. Many publishers refuse it, plenty of sites that accept it exist only to sell links, and the rules around gambling promotion are strict. That makes the publisher check more important than in almost any other niche. This guide lists what we look at before a gambling or casino link goes live, why each check matters, and what to avoid.

It builds on our guide to casino link building. Here the focus is on one question: is this site a good place for the link?

Why the publisher check matters more here

In most niches a weak site wastes money. In gambling it can also put your brand next to the wrong content. Three things make this niche different.

• Many sites exist to sell links. Gambling pays well, so it attracts sites that take any casino link for a fee. Those sites often link out to dozens of gambling brands.
• Rules apply to the marketing, not just the product. In the UK, for example, licence conditions say licensees are responsible for the actions of third parties they contract with, and they must be able to end a contract with an affiliate that breaches a relevant advertising code. The same condition requires licensees to comply with the advertising codes issued by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP). Other markets have their own rules.
• It counts as a sensitive topic. Gambling can harm people, so readers and regulators look closely at who is promoting it and where.

The rules differ by country and licence, and following them is your responsibility. We can't give legal advice.

The checks we run

This is our own checklist. The numbers are the thresholds we use, not rules from Google or any regulator.

1. A real publisher with real content. Does the site publish original articles on a regular basis, with named authors and an About page? A site that exists only to host paid gambling posts is a warning sign. We read recent posts on every site, and a person does it, not a tool.

2. Real organic traffic. We look for at least 800 organic visits a month, as reported by SEO tools. Those tools estimate traffic and can be wrong, so we treat the number as a filter and not a promise. We also look at where the traffic comes from. A site with traffic from the wrong country does little for a campaign in another market.

3. Consistent traffic. Sudden drops or spikes can point to a penalty or bot traffic. Updates and site changes can also explain them, so we look at the cause before we decide.

4. Domain Rating of 20 or more, and 200 or more referring domains. Both figures come from SEO tools and are a rough guide to how established a site is. We use them as a minimum, not as a measure of quality on their own. Our guide to link quality metrics explains what the common metrics do and don't tell you.

5. The gambling footprint. We check how many casino, betting or gambling sites the publisher already links to. If a site links to dozens of them, it is probably a link-selling site, and your link will sit in a crowd.

6. Linked domains versus linking domains. If a site links to four or five times more domains than link to it, we get cautious. It can signal a private blog network or a lot of sponsored content.

7. Relevance. The placement should sit in a logical, contextually aligned category, such as sports, technology, lifestyle or business news, and not on a page that has nothing to do with it. See our guide to industry-specific link building.

8. Labels. Some publishers label gambling content as sponsored or as an advert, and some countries require it. If a placement will carry a label, we tell you before you approve the site, and you decide whether to go ahead.

Signs that a site is not worth it

• A "write for us" page that accepts every topic, with prices
• Dozens of outbound links to casino and betting brands on the same pages
• No named authors, no About page, no way to contact the publisher
• Articles that read as spun or machine-written, with no sources
• Traffic that falls sharply or comes from countries unrelated to the site
• Pages that link to many unrelated sites in the same paragraph
• A promise of a fixed number of links in days for a flat fee

One of these doesn't always rule a site out. Several together almost always do.

Paid links and Google's rules

Google's spam policies say that buying or selling links that pass ranking credit can break its rules, and that paid links should be qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". That applies to every niche. Whether a publisher also shows a visible label is a separate question (see check 8). We explain the attributes in our guide to link rel attributes.

What to check on your side

• Your market. Make sure gambling promotion is legal where the placement will be read, and that you hold the licence the market requires.
• Your content. Placements should follow the advertising rules of the market. Keep claims about winnings accurate and sourced, and keep promotions clear.
• Responsible gambling. Where a market expects age and responsible-gambling messages, make sure they are present.

How we handle it

We accept gambling orders only through our iGaming link building service, and only for markets where promotion is legal. You choose the sites from a shortlist and approve the content before it's published. We place links and mentions, and we don't give legal advice. The full review list is on our iGaming page.

This is general information about link building, not legal, financial or medical advice.

Sources

Checked on 1 October 2026.

• UK Gambling Commission: LCCP condition 1.1.2, responsibility for third parties
• UK Gambling Commission: LCCP condition 5.1.6, compliance with advertising codes
• Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search (updated August 2026)
• Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links to Google