The TopRanked.io Weekly Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [+ Bovada Affiliate Program Review]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you how Bovada run a top-notch affiliate program. And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on a Bovada link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

When I say the word bombshell, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

Is it this?

Or this?

If your answer was “blonde” and not “Google”, then this week’s news might turn your world upside down.

But, before we get to that, you’re going to need a way to monetize (because we always tell you how to monetize the news).

TopRanked.io Affiliate Program of the Week — Bovada Partners

This week, we’re going to conclude the news by telling you how you can rank PPC (pills, porn, casino) content on Google when it launches its next big update (the bombshell).

But if you’re gonna rank that kinda content, then you’re gonna need a way to monetize. And, here, there ain’t much better than Bovada Partners — the affiliate program for Bovada casino and sportsbook.

A Little Bit About Bovada

Look, there’s not a lot more we need to tell you about Bovada — we already tipped Bovada was a casino and sportsbook program. So what more do you need to know?

Yes, Bovada has poker, slots, table games, video poker, and more casino games than you can count.

And yes, Bovada has a comprehensive sportsbook covering everything from horse racing to darts betting.

Basically, if it’s sportsbooky or casinoish in any way, Bovada has you covered.

And yes, that also means Bovada accepts crypto deposits from players.

So let’s get to the meat of what you need to know about Bovada.

Bovada Affiliate Commissions

Like any casino/sports betting program worth its weight in affiliate commissions, Bovada pays its affiliates well.

The default plan is, of course, NGR (net gaming revenue) rev share. And here, Bovada will start you out on 25%.

But, of course, this is just the entry tier. And, once you start driving new players towards Bovada, Bovada will up your commissions. Here, Bovada tops out at 45% + “special initiatives for top performers.”

There is also the option to move over to CPA and hybrid plans. However, what Bovada gives you here is 100% up to your negotiation with your affiliate manager.

Bovada Payouts and Other Good to Knows

Bovada pays its affiliates monthly (payments are processed on the 15th of each month), and has super helpful affiliate managers.

Bovada also provides its affiliates with plenty of marketing materials, great tracking, and everything else you need to succeed.

Pretty much, the only thing Bovada can’t give you is the details you’ll need to enter into the Bovada affiliates signup form, which you’ll find here.

PS: Bovada doesn’t require a lot from you when you sign up.

PPS: If you want a more detailed review, check out our full Bovada affiliates review on TopRanked.io.

Affiliate News Takeaways — Google Drops a Bombshell

This week, Google dropped a bomb on the SEO community. Here’s the opening to a TechCrunch article to introduce you to the story:

“There have been a growing number of complaints that Google Search is not as useful as it used to be. In fact, Google execs even admitted that young people are turning to services like TikTok and Instagram for their search needs, or are appending terms like “Reddit” to the end of queries to get more useful results. Today, the company is finally ready to do something about this problem with the launch of two new initiatives.”

As for what those initiatives are, the first is a feature it’s calling “Follow”. This is a feature that will allow users to “Follow” particular topics. Here’s how Google explains it:

“To help you more easily keep up with searches or topics you come back to a lot, or want to learn more about, we’re introducing the ability to follow exactly what you’re interested in. From your favorite sports team to something more specific, like vegan cooking, you’ll see more useful information related to what you care about across Search, with less effort.”

Now, as for how this is supposed to help people find more relevant information, I’m not 100% sure here. After all, what does “following” something like “vegan cooking” do that I can’t achieve by, say, adding the word “vegan” to my search for “best burger recipe”?

So, unless I’m missing something here, I don’t really see what this does aside from giving users the illusion of ‘empowerment over their search experience.’

As for the second initiative. Well, that’s the one that’s the real bombshell.

But more on that later.

To understand why it will be a bombshell (and how to deal with it), let’s first get to the bottom of the problem that Google is actually trying to solve.

So What’s the Problem With Google Search?

According to many people (mostly SEOs… and, until recently, Google’s PR machine), Google search is better than ever.

But, ask any regular person, and search is terrible.

And, as much some people might try to explain this effect away as us just expecting more from search now than ever (and thus, we’re disappointed), this also kinda misses the point.

Objectively speaking, search is actually kinda terrible, and any SEO telling you otherwise is drastically out of touch with what end users of the content they’re promoting actually want.

To illustrate, just look at the recent drama that erupted over the recent Verge article, “The People Who Ruined the Internet.”

A bunch of SEOs got their panties in a knot.

Twitter lit up.

Countless liters of digital ink were spilled into countless articles defending SEOs.

And that resulted in a bunch of people claiming SEOs were being mischaracterized… because… you know, SEO is about making the internet a better place…

To quote Danny Goodwin (Managing Editor of Search Engine Land) here, the “bitter, cynical Verge article” apparently ignored “all the good work most SEOs do to make Search and the user experience better.”

Sure, Danny. SEOs are all about making the internet a better place.

So it seems that SEOs like Danny have some sort of fundamental misunderstanding (or willful ignorance) of what the average person is talking about when they complain about things like “SEO spam.”

After all, if SEOs are making the Internet a better place, then why are people increasingly dissatisfied?

Let’s Come Up With a Theory

I have a theory here about why people think search is worse than ever. So come on a journey with me back to the “worst” days of Google search — the early 2000s.

Now, if you’re not old enough to remember, that was the era where you could promote literally anything to anyone.

It was also the era where PPC (pills, porn, casino) was king of the SERPs.

Basically, if you wanted to promote online bingo to senior citizens searching for adult diapers, it was easy. All it took was a little black-hatted, keyword-stuffed magic, and you could land any “content” on page one of the SERPs for any arbitrary search term.

So that’s all anyone who was purely motivated by ranking content did — simple SEO hacks.

Now, funnily enough, for the average person, this was maybe a blessing in disguise.

Yes, really.

At least back then, it was obvious within half a second of landing on a page that it was spam. So in a way, that “bug” in Google’s algorithm actually made it easier to work out what was properly authoritative content and what wasn’t.

But then, Google got better. Florida, Penguin, Panda, BERT, Helpful Content, etc., etc.

And every step of the way, SEOs adapted.

Fast forward to today, and Google’s SERPs are relatively spam-free.

Or are they?

PS: If you’re not averse to a little PPC marketing, Bovada is a great casino program for you.

It’s Time We Redefine Spam

While it’s easy to say Google SERPs are relatively spam-free if we hold onto that narrow PPC definition of spam, it’s probably time we update that definition.

And that’s maybe where the current chasm between all the good little whitehats claiming they do good and the real, everyday users exists.

The classic example here that gets pulled up every time regular, non-SEO people talk about SEO spam is the cooking recipe written up as a 4000-word life story.

Sure, it’s usually well-structured, long-form, “authoritative” content on reasonably fast-loading websites.

But when people complain about SEO spam, they’re not complaining about any of that… per se.

They’re not even complaining about the obligatory Amazon Associate links that inevitably appeared when bloggers started trying to monetize.

So what are they complaining about?

Here’s an Example of What SEO Spam Looks Like, Courtesy of… The Verge

To illustrate what the average person is complaining about when they say “SEO spam”, the best way to illustrate it is to give one of the most subtle examples I can find.

And for that, I turn back to the pages of the Verge. (And yes, that means I’m totally accusing of The Verge being a major SEO spammer, even as they try to point the finger at others for ruining the internet.)

To illustrate, let’s take this example of SEO spam that’s gracing its pages. This example currently shows up at #1 in my SERPs if I search “Coros Vertix 2 Review”. (It’s a watch.)

Now, on first impressions, there’s nothing wrong with the review. (Remember, I did say this would be subtle).

In fact, it’s got all the markers of quality.

It’s even written by Victoria Song, “a senior reporter focusing on wearables, health tech, and more with 11 years of experience. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.”

So what’s the problem? I mean, we have a smartwatch being reviewed by a real-life, authoritative “wearables” reporter for an authoritative publication.

Well, that’s kinda where the problem is.

For the average person searching out this product, the fact that it’s written by “a senior reporter focusing on wearables and health tech” is the problem…

That is unless Victoria Song also happens to be a passionate alpinist…

You see, the watch in question is squarely aimed at a very specific market segment — people who like to go on big mountain climbing expeditions.

Of course, as it turns out, Victoria’s not interested in that sort of stuff. So instead of getting a review about the watch in the context of its target market (people looking for a watch for multi-day expeditions in tough alpine environments), we instead get a review that trashes the watch due to irrelevant complaints about how its big and bulky design “excludes many people, particularly women, from using Coros’ most advanced smartwatch.”

Or how you’re “not going to get NFC payments”… because… that’s important… how else do you pay for your Big Mac on the summit of Everest?

Now, I know, I know — this is the point where SEOs devolve into moral philosophers and, as much as they might hate to right now, will want to leap in and defend the Verge. After all, as long as they’re writing real, honest reviews, then there’s no harm here.

And, in one way, there is no problem, I agree. Anyone can write a review about anything if they want… free country and all that.

But still, this does go wrong.

After all, does the average Verge reader really care about a watch aimed at alpinists and the like?

Not really.

And does the average person seeking out such a product want to read a review written by a “senior wearables reporter”?

Not really.

But, when the scale of the internet combines with the magic of SEO, the promised land of stray ad clicks suddenly turns what would have been a waste of time for The Verge into a lucrative activity.

And so now everyone is motivated to write about everything, resulting in what is the very definition of spam (“Irrelevant… messages sent over the internet… for the purposes of advertising.”) being dressed up as authoritative content.

So, How Will Google Solve the SEO Spam Problem?

Honestly, Google may never be able to solve this problem, so there’s every chance that what works for SEO today will work tomorrow.

But, then again, with AI developing as fast as it is, it’s entirely possible they will.

And, if that happens, then things will change.

As for how this will look, the best I can offer is wild speculation. But, in the interests of at least trying to get some idea, let’s turn back to the previous SERPs we used above.

Way down in the #24 position, buried beneath a flood of SEO spam, we find this review for the same watch published by the New Zealand Alpine Team. (Hilariously enough, it was a glowing review written by a petite woman — the exact person who, according to The Verge, should have felt “offended” by the way the watch’s design “excluded” her…)

As for what makes me think this is the sort of content that will start to rank higher, that’s pretty simple.

It has:

• Experience: The review was written by someone who tried it out over an extended period of time… in the product’s intended real-world use cases (i.e., climbing mountains).
• Expertise: The product was reviewed by someone with a lot of skill and knowledge when it comes to climbing mountains.
• Authority: The reviewer and the site itself presumably have a good reputation among people who like climbing mountains.
• Trustworthiness: If you’re someone who likes to climb mountains and you’re looking for a watch to take with you, then you’re way more likely to trust this review than The Verge.

Now, if you’re paying attention, you would have noticed that all of the above forms the acronym EEAT.

And that’s because there’s really no good reason to believe that Google will abandon this as the foundation for ranking content. (This is, after all, the one thing that everyone is looking for, no matter what keywords they type in.)

What there is good reason to believe is that Google will start to dial back the weight given to crude markers of EEAT. You know, like content length, backlinks, and all the other things that are now just cheap SEO hacks.

What they’ll start looking at instead is the kind of things a person would look at to gauge EEAT.

How’s that?

Enter Google Notes Lab Experiment

The second big announcement this week was the launch of “Notes” — a Google labs experiment to see if having regular users annotate the web leads to better search results.

Here’s what Google has to say about Notes.

“We’ve seen in our research that people are interested in what people like them are saying about a given web page. Notes are designed to work hand-in-hand with existing content on the web, adding a new layer of human insights to your search results.”

“Our goal with this new Labs experiment is to provide access to helpful tips about an article or topic from both experts and everyday people. This not only helps you narrow in on the most relevant information, but also may help you see what worked for others who have been there before.”

In other words, Google is probably looking to farm out ranking websites to regular users by getting them to “share their knowledge right on Search.”

Now, presumably, a few years ago this would have been an absolute nightmare to moderate. But, with the evolution of AI (combined with how much data Google has on everyone), I can kinda see this working. Or, at least, being very, very expensive to manipulate.

Takeaway

None of this has any immediate effect. Remember, this “Notes” feature is just an experiment for now.

But, if it does work out, it will be the biggest bombshell to hit SEO since Florida.

Basically, nailing EEAT will no longer have anything to do with how many backlinks you have, how long-form your content is, or how “authoritative” your author bios are.

Instead, it will have everything to do with convincing real people coming to your page that your content is valuable to them.

That means you can expect the whole “search intent” thing (and user expectations) to get a whole lot more important.

And as for how you keep ranking in the face of that… well, that’s up for you to decide.

But seriously, don’t fret. And don’t overestimate people — they’ve been falling bluffs since the dawn of time.

Who knows, all it might require is taking on a gambling “degen” persona to get people to think your casino reviews are the best on the web.

And when they do, you’ll know how to monetize.

Closing Thought

Let’s keep this week short and sweet with a simple quote courtesy of James Clear.

“The imperfect project you actually complete is worth more than the perfect project you never finish.”

And here’s a tip on how to put that into action.

Instead of figuring out the perfect way to leverage the Bovada affiliate program, just go out and try something the next time you have a spare day.

It doesn’t need to be pretty. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to come into existence.

And, as often happens in life, that imperfect thing you brought into existence may just be the happy accident you were always looking for.

Join Bovada here:

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

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