Party, 888 top US poker sites despite UIGEA 09/06/2009
Jon Parker
PartyPoker and 888 continue to be the most visible poker sites to American internet users despite no longer taking US bets, new research has revealed.
A study by search engine marketing company Greenlight shows that the two brands beat poker operators including PokerStars and FullTilt that continue to take US bets despite the passage of America’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) ban on egaming in 2006.
The research looked at results for searches on dominant search engine Google’s US-facing site, Google.com, for terms such as ‘online poker’, ‘poker chips’ and the word ‘poker’ in April. Google is the world’s most popular search engine, accounting for 90% of internet searches. April is the most recent month for which accurate data can be confirmed.
PartyPoker was seen on the first page of results for 45% of searches, followed by 888 on 44%. PokerStars was in third place with 37% of results, while FullTilt came in 12th place with 11%.
The site that beat all others for poker-related searches, however, was online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, which appeared on the first page of results for 57% of results. The report concluded that “this proves site credibility and depth of content can improve rankings.”
OnlinePoker66.com came in fifth place, appearing on the first page for a third of poker searches (33%). The 20 most visible poker sites can be read at the bottom of the page.
The word ‘poker’ was the most popular poker-related search term, used in 37% of poker searches, followed by ‘online poker’ (8%), ‘full tilt poker’ and ‘poker chips’ (4% each). ‘Poker hands’, ‘video poker’ and ‘high stakes poker’ received 3% each; ‘poker table’, ‘free online poker’ ‘free poker’ and ‘Texas holdem’ 2% each, and all other search terms accounted for 30% in total.
As reported on EGRmagazine.com last week, PartyPoker and 888 are also the most visible poker websites for Google UK users (more).
The 20 most visible sites to US online poker players
- Wikipedia 57%
- Partypoker.com 45%
- 888.com 44%
- Pokerstars.com 37%
- Onlinepoker66.com 33%
- Freepoker.org 31%
- Thefreepokerroom.com 29%
- Pacificpoker.com 26%
- Pokerlistings.com 24%
- Pokerroom.com
- Pkr.com 15%
- Pokerjunkie.com 14%
- Fulltiltpoker.com 11%
- Poker.co.uk 11%
- Launchpoker.com 9%
- Personalpokerchip.com 8%
- Playwinningpoker.com 7%
- Flop2river.com 6%
- Pokerstars.net 6%
- Gamble.co.uk 5%
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Posted: 09/06/2009
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