US Online Casino Link Building Case Study
Feb 2022 to May 2026 • 1,985 links • 1,783 unique publishers
|
1,985
Links Placed
|
1,783
Unique Domains
|
40/mo
Avg Delivery
|
6.3x
Organic Traffic
|
66x
Top-3 Keywords
|
Executive summary
From Feb 2022 to May 2026 we placed 1,985 links for a major US online casino brand on 1,783 unique publishers. Over that time the client’s casino site grew from a small add-on to its sportsbook into a casino site with real search visibility:
| Metric (client casino site, Ahrefs) | Start | Latest | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. monthly organic traffic | 30,400 (2022) | 191,600 (2025) | 6.3x |
| Avg. monthly traffic value | $139K (2022) | $799K (2025) | 5.8x |
| Keywords ranking top 3 | 50 (Jan 2022) | 3,321 (Aug 2025 peak) | 66x |
| Keywords ranking top 10 | 181 (Jan 2022) | 8,792 (Aug 2025 peak) | 49x |
| Referring domains | 336 (Jan 2022) | 9,667 (Jun 2026) | 29x |
The game category pages saw the biggest gains. Blackjack, slots and roulette each now peak 50 to 74 times higher than in their first year.
The client and starting point
The client is a major US gaming brand with online casino and sportsbook products. In January 2022, its casino site had almost no organic presence and sat in the shadow of the brand’s sportsbook.
- Referring domains: 336, about an eighth of the brand’s sportsbook site
- Organic traffic: about 10,300 visits a month
- Rankings: 50 keywords in the top 3 and 181 in the top 10
- Game pages: the blackjack page drew 385 visits a month, roulette 115 and slots 465
Online casino is legal in only a few US states. That makes the pool of keywords smaller and the competition from casino affiliates heavier than in sports betting.
The approach
The casino campaign leaned on authority and spread. Almost every link came from a new domain, and most pointed at game category pages rather than the homepage.
| Lever | What we did |
|---|---|
| Volume | 1,985 links, about 40 a month, scaling from 40–95 a quarter in 2022 to 120–165 a quarter from 2024 |
| Publisher mix | 1,783 unique domains (90% of links on a new domain): general-interest sites (64%), news (15%) and tech (5%); only 9% were casino, gambling or gaming sites |
| Authority | Median DR 46; 44% of links from DR 50+ sites; 99% dofollow |
| Targets | Casino site (1,572): game categories (932: blackjack 298, slots 247, roulette 119, live casino 106, jackpots 102), homepage (371), single games (231). Main brand site (409): state casino pages for PA, MI, NJ and WV (297) and how-to-play guides (112) |
| Anchors | 25% branded (“[brand] casino”, “[brand] online casino”), the rest game terms (“online blackjack”, “online slots”, “online roulette”, “real money blackjack”) |
| Content | Bespoke articles on strategy, game rules and casino culture, with the link in the body |
Link velocity
The campaign ramped up gradually and then held steady. New publishers kept coming: 262 domains in 2022, 1,166 by the end of 2024 and 1,783 by May 2026.
Results
The casino subdomain grew from 10,000 to 160,000 visits a month. Traffic peaked at 276,000 in Aug 2025, dipped to 111,000 in May 2026, and recovered to 190,000 by July. Rankings held up better than traffic through that dip: top-10 keywords stayed between 5,500 and 6,900. Referring domains grew in almost every month, from 336 to 9,667 at their peak.
Target page results
The game category pages drove the growth. Blackjack went from 385 visits in Jan 2022 to 39,100 in Jul 2026, and slots peaked at 56,500 in Aug 2025. Jackpots is the exception. It peaked at 1,368 in Sep 2025 and has fallen to 245 by Aug 2026 despite 102 links, which suggests links alone were not enough for that page.
Takeaways and caveats
In a narrow, affiliate-heavy niche, links from many different publishers to game category pages produced the biggest gains.
- Domain diversity. 90% of links came from a domain we had not used before. That spread built the casino site’s referring domains from 336 to 9,667.
- Category pages over the homepage. The four game pages with the most links (blackjack, slots, roulette and live casino) grew 25 to 74 times.
- Mainstream publishers. Only 9% of links came from gambling sites. General, news and tech sites carried the campaign at a median DR of 46.
What this does not prove. These are correlations, not controlled tests. The client also grew through new state launches, product and brand marketing, and other SEO work. Our domains make up at most about 19% of the referring domains the casino site gained. Traffic also fell 60% between Aug 2025 and May 2026 while links were still being placed, which shows that other factors were at work.
Data notes
- Traffic and keyword figures are Ahrefs estimates for all countries; the US-only view was not available on this Ahrefs plan.
- Ahrefs data runs to Aug 2026. September and October 2026 are excluded as incomplete.
- Link counts come from our internal link sheet (1,985 rows). Ahrefs data was pulled on 30 Oct 2026.