Decide what you are buying before you compare agencies
Agencies are easy to compare on the wrong things: the number of links a month, the length of the client list, the price of a retainer. Four decisions on your side make the comparison honest, and each one changes which agency fits.
- Operator or affiliate. An operator needs its lobby, game, bonus and payment pages to rank and its brand results to be clean. An affiliate needs review and comparison pages to pass Google’s reviews and spam policies. The work, the risks and the reporting differ, and many agencies are built for one of the two.
- Which markets, under which licences. Each regulator sets its own rules on bonus content, on who may promote you and on what your pages must show. Write the list of jurisdictions down before the first call; it is the first thing a good agency will ask for.
- What counts as a result. Registrations and first-time deposits from organic search, by market, are the numbers your business runs on. Rankings and traffic are how you get there. Agree which one the agency is paid to move.
- What stays in-house. Development, compliance sign-off and content often already have owners. An agency that assumes it does everything, or nothing, will plan the wrong first quarter.
Ten questions to ask, and how to read the answers
Put the same questions to every agency on the shortlist and write the answers down. The good answers are specific and checkable; the worrying ones are confident and vague.
- 1
What do you need to know about our licences and markets before you plan?
- A good answer
- Asks for every jurisdiction, the regulator, which products you offer where, and who signs off content. Names a rule from your market that changes the plan.
- Should worry you
- The same plan for every market, or a promise to rank you anywhere.
- 2
Can we see a case study with the client’s data behind it?
- A good answer
- A named client, or a screen share of the client’s Search Console: start point, dates, market, and branded and non-branded clicks shown apart.
- Should worry you
- Screenshots of rankings only, traffic with no market or brand split, or a confidentiality clause used to show nothing at all.
- 3
Where will our links come from?
- A good answer
- Kinds of publication, a sample of past placements you can open, the checks a site must pass, and paid placements marked sponsored, which is what Google’s link spam policy asks for.
- Should worry you
- A fixed number of links a month, a private network, “high authority” scores instead of sites, or a refusal to show any URL.
- 4
What will you do in the first 90 days, page by page?
- A good answer
- An audit, a page map that says which page owns which search, and the technical fixes in the order they will be done, with the deliverable for each month.
- Should worry you
- “Content and links” with no list of pages, or a content calendar before anyone has read your site.
- 5
How will you report, and from which data?
- A good answer
- Registrations and first deposits from organic by market and page type, non-branded clicks from Search Console, and the AI answers about your brand. From your accounts, not the agency’s.
- Should worry you
- A rankings report and an authority score, from a tool you cannot open.
- 6
Who will do the work?
- A good answer
- The people named: who plans, who writes, who checks each page against the rules of each market, and who you call.
- Should worry you
- A senior person in the pitch and nobody named for delivery.
- 7
How do you keep content inside the rules of each market?
- A good answer
- Names the rules: in the UK the CAP Code section on gambling and the 10x wagering cap on bonuses; in Ontario no bonus content outside your own site; in New Jersey the material conditions next to the offer. Says your compliance team has the final word.
- Should worry you
- “We know the industry.”
- 8
What happens to the accounts, content and links if we stop?
- A good answer
- Everything is in your name from day one: Search Console, analytics, the content and its sources. You receive the page map and the link list.
- Should worry you
- Accounts the agency owns, or links on sites the agency controls that disappear when the contract ends.
- 9
Do you work for our competitors, or for affiliates in our market?
- A good answer
- A clear policy, said before you ask. Affiliates rank for operators’ brand searches, so an agency working for both sides of one market has a conflict to explain.
- Should worry you
- A vague answer, or a list of clients that includes your direct competitors in the same market.
- 10
How long until we see results?
- A good answer
- A range tied to your site, your market and the competition, with milestones per quarter, and the first things expected to move.
- Should worry you
- A date for page one. Google’s own advice on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking.
Answers that should end the conversation
Some answers are not a matter of fit. Each of these puts your site, your licence or your data at risk, and each has a source you can check.
- Guaranteed rankings. Google’s page on hiring an SEO: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” The same page warns about anyone claiming a special relationship with Google.
- Links sold by the month. Links paid for and passing ranking credit are link spam under Google’s policies, including links in guest posts and press releases. A quota of links per month is a quota of risk.
- Hundreds of pages from one template. Google’s scaled content abuse policy covers pages made in bulk to rank, whoever or whatever writes them. A plan of 300 slot reviews in a quarter is that.
- No question about your licence. In the UK, Ontario, Germany and the Netherlands the operator answers for its affiliates’ and marketers’ conduct. An agency that never asks where you are licensed is planning work you will be liable for.
- Promotion of unlicensed brands. In Ontario a paid affiliate may not promote unregistered sites that take Ontario wagers (Standard 1.21). In the Netherlands an affiliate that promotes an unlicensed operator is itself in breach. Ask an affiliate agency which brands its network links to.
- Accounts you do not own. Google advises giving an SEO doing an audit read access to Search Console, not write access. Analytics, the domain and the content should be yours throughout.
Launching in a new regulated market: what to ask
When the work is a launch, the agency’s knowledge of the market matters more than anything else on this page: the rules decide which pages may exist, who may link to you and what each page must carry. Ask these seven questions about the market you are entering. The answers below use Ontario, the market operators ask us about most, with the regulator’s own wording, and add other markets where the rule differs.
| Ask the agency | Why it matters | Ontario, and elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| When may the site go live, and what can be indexed before then? | Pages built ahead of the launch date need a plan for when Google may see them. | Operators need AGCO registration and an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. AGCO’s go-live guide says registration alone is not permission to go live. |
| Where may bonus content appear? | Bonus pages are among the most searched pages a casino has, and the rule decides whether they can rank at all. | Standard 2.05 bans communicating bonuses except on the operator’s own site and in consented direct marketing. AGCO’s guidance names affiliate pages and search engine results. In the UK, bonus wagering is capped at 10x since 19 January 2026. |
| Which sites may link to us, and which affiliates may we pay? | A link from an affiliate that also promotes unlicensed brands is a compliance problem before it is an SEO one. | Standard 1.21: paid affiliates may not also promote unregistered sites taking Ontario wagers. iGaming Ontario’s directory (49 operators, 84 sites as of 1 September 2026) is the check. In Germany affiliates may link only to operators on the regulator’s whitelist. |
| Does the market need its own domain or language? | It decides the site structure, and so the whole technical plan. | Ontario has no domain rule; 51 of the 84 sites in iGaming Ontario’s directory are on .ca. Spain requires a .es site for Spanish players. Sweden requires key game information in Swedish. |
| What must the pages carry? | Missing statements are a compliance finding, and they are also what players and AI answers check. | Standard 2.09: a responsible gambling statement and ConnexOntario’s link and number on registration and account pages. 4.06: game rules and odds information placed prominently. 2.08: a responsible gambling message in advertising. |
| What happens to visitors and crawlers from outside the licence? | Geo-blocking can block Google too: Google says its crawler’s default IP addresses appear to be in the USA. | Standard 3.02: games only within Ontario, with geolocation. Block play, not the pages Google needs to read, and say how they will test it. |
| Do you, or your affiliates, need to register? | How the agency is paid can trigger a registration. | Ontario: marketing affiliates generally do not register, decided case by case. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan license or register affiliates, and revenue share brings the heavier licence. |
Rules as read at the regulators’ own pages on 22–23 October 2026: AGCO’s Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming (updated 14 May 2026), its advertising guidance of 16 March 2022 and its go-live guide, iGaming Ontario’s directory, Spain’s Real Decreto 1613/2011, Sweden’s Spellag, the German GGL and the New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan regulators. How the rules shape SEO work, not legal advice: your compliance team signs off.
One more question for every launch: what happens to the plan if the market changes? Brazil’s regulated betting market, open since January 2025, was closed by a provisional measure on 25 September 2026. A good agency has an answer that does not depend on the market staying as it is.
Our own worked example of an Ontario casino launch is on the casino SEO agency page, and the jurisdictions we work in, with what a licence changes in each, are on the iGaming SEO agency page.
What the contract should say
- Deliverables, not hours alone. The audit, the page map, the pages to be built or fixed, and the reporting, each with a month. Hours are a budget; deliverables are what you can check.
- Ownership. Accounts, content, data and the list of placements belong to you, during the contract and after it.
- Review points. A date, usually each quarter, when the plan is checked against the numbers you agreed and either side may change it.
- Who approves what. Which changes the agency makes itself, which wait for your approval, and who in your company signs off content against the rules of each market.
- The exit. Notice period, handover of the page map, the link list and the work in progress. No fee for leaving that outlasts the work.
Why AI assistants will not choose for you
On 21 and 22 October 2026 we put 60 questions that buyers of gambling, crypto and AI-search marketing ask to ChatGPT and Perplexity. ChatGPT named no agency in 20 of its answers. On twelve questions neither surface named one, and the gambling ones among them were decision questions: how to choose an iGaming SEO agency, what to ask before hiring one for a gambling site, what the red flags are, whether to hire an agency or build a team, and how long SEO takes for a new casino.
What you get instead is a checklist assembled from pages that rank. For “How do I choose an iGaming SEO agency?”, Perplexity cited ten pages, and seven of them sit on agencies’ own sites. That does not make the advice wrong; this page is written by an agency too. It means the checklist is a starting point, and the questions above are where you test it.
| Question | ChatGPT named | Perplexity named |
|---|---|---|
| How do I choose an iGaming SEO agency? | No agency | No agency |
| What should I ask an SEO agency before hiring them for a gambling site? | No agency | No agency |
| What are the red flags when hiring a gambling SEO agency? | No agency | No agency |
| We are launching an online casino in Ontario. Who can do the organic growth? | No agency | Three agencies |
Method: ChatGPT (gpt-4.1-mini, web search on) and Perplexity (sonar) through the API, US, one answer per question, 21–22 October 2026. A direction, not a rate.