This saw the sector's share, search-wise, increase from 18% in March to 23% in June. By contrast, poker, casino and bingo took a hit. Overall, UK consumer search for gaming-related terms was down to 2.3 million in June compared to 3 million, 2.7 million and 2.6 in March, April and May, respectively.
"Going by the search trend, it would seem June was a significant month for the sports betting industry, whilst the casino, bingo and poker sectors have seen the reverse", says Simon Hollingsworth, lead researcher at Greenlight. "The popularity of sports betting-related searches can be explained by the various sporting events which took place in June, such as Wimbledon and the FIFA World Cup. It will be interesting to see how this evolves over the next quarter with the forthcoming domestic football season."
Greenlight used industry data and proprietary technology to identify and classify 700 of the most popular search terms used by UK consumers when they went online in June to search for gaming websites and totalled the number of times each one was used. This gives an indication of the size of audience and how Google users went about their searches for gaming websites in June. Greenlight also used the data to compile its quarterly league tables. These chart the best performing websites and brands, in both natural* and paid search**, based on their online visibility and share of voice in relation to the most popular search terms identified.
Some key findings reveal
According to Greenlight on the whole, paid search visibility for gaming websites was relatively low, compared to individual segments.
No. | Website/Advertiser | Natural Search | Paid Search |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 888.com | 34% | 16% |
2 | betfair.com | 16% | 24% |
3 | wikipedia.org | 35% | 0% |
4 | paddypower.com | 14% | 18% |
5 | ladbrokes.com | 31% | 0% |
6 | 888ladies.com | 14% | 17% |
7 | williamhill.com | 9% | 21% |
8 | bet365.com | 10% | 18% |
9 | meccabingo.com | 2% | 24% |
10 | bingohollywood.com | 0% | 26% |
*Paid Search / PPC (pay per click) - an Internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market
**Natural Search - Listings in search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms
Greenlight's report, Gaming Sector Report June 2010, profiles search behaviour in this sector. It assesses which websites and aggregators are the most visible in natural and paid search results, and hence have the greatest share of consideration when UK-based searchers go to Google to search for gaming sites.
Source: Greenlight (www.greenlightsearch.com/sectorreports/)