Jeff's World - Gambling.com Switches Focus as Vertical Search Heats-up
Jeff’s World is back and today we are speaking with Tim Rosenberg. Tim is the Marketing Director for Gambling.com and he joins us today to discuss an emerging trend in search: specialization or niche search engines.

1) Tim, Thank you for agreeing to join us today. Can you share with our readers the history of Gambling.com?
Tim: The Gambling.com portal was launched in 1997 as one of the very first e-gaming sites. Gambling.com has never been an ‘operator’, but is positioned as a gateway to help people access casino and sports book sites.
Gambling.com has a very loyal membership.

2) How does Gambling.com work?
Tim: The new look Gambling.com search function allows visitors to search for gambling related web sites by simply typing in the keyword that best describes what they are looking for, e.g., ‘Poker’ or ‘Online Casino’. As a gambling.com member, they can access exclusive tournaments, games and collect ‘Ludos’, the Gambling.com virtual currency. Ludos can be used at participating advertisers’ sites for their products and services.

3) What is the revenue model for Gambling.com? Revenues for 2004? Projected for 2005?
Tim: Gambling.com generates revenues by virtue of sending good quality players to our sponsors’ sites, a PPC model. I hope you will appreciate I cannot provide you with confidential figures such as revenues etc..

4) How many searches are performed monthly?
Tim: Approx 350,000

5) Why should someone doing a gaming related search use Gambling.com versus Google, Yahoo or another traditional search engine?
Tim: 2 reasons
1) As the Gambling.com listings are editorially approved by ‘real people’ as opposed to web crawlers/spiders, as such this policy ensures that you will receive the most accurate/relevant results for your particular search. Our editors weed out the ‘fluff’ and help ensure a better search experience.
2) Due to the uncertain legislative situation in the USA, Google and Yahoo no longer accept sponsored listings from casino/sportsbook operators.

6) What are the demographics for users of Gambling.com? Are you finding that visitors are already have experience in the gaming industry or are they relatively new to gaming?
Tim: We receive a very wide range of visitors from the very experienced ‘gambler’ to people who are trying things for the first time. Gender-wise, our users are slightly skewed towards men. They primarily are doing searches for poker, sportsbook and blackjack related terms. Female searchers are typically searching for bingo and lottery related information.

7) What was the impetus for transforming Gambling.com into a search engine?
Tim: ‘Search’ drives the vast majority of visits to all sites on the internet, we do not see any reason why that should not be the same for a specific market like gaming.

8) Has the huge growth in poker on TV affected your business? How so?
Tim: The growth interest in poker as well as the likes of bingo etc. has had a positive effect in driving people online in search of gaming sites.

9) What direction do you see Gambling.com taking in the future?
Tim: We have lots of ideas and plans for the coming 12 months…watch this space. For instance, we are speaking with a few quality third party sites about delivering advertising on their sites; much like Google does.

10) What role do you think niche, or industry specific search engines will have in the search industry?
Tim: We believe that niche specific search engines will provide more accurate/relevant/targeted results. We are focused on generating good quality traffic for our advertisers.

11) What unique challenges does Gambling.com face as compared to a traditional SE?
Tim: Very specialized – but thus a very targeted/premium visitor. Plus we are looking at ways to brand Gambling.com.

12) As a human edited SE, that must be very time consuming for all involved. How long does it normally take be included?
Tim: We aim to approve all listings within 3 working days. Currently we pretty much approve everything within 24-48 hours.

Thanks to Tim Rosenberg for sharing his 2 cents worth.

Jeff.

About Jeff's World - If you're a regular reader of Search Engine Lowdown, you'll no doubt have become accustomed to reading the caustic comments offered by "Jeff". We've decided that Jeff's comments are far too entertaining to let languish in the world of our "comments" section and so, we started a new feature entitled, "Jeff's World" ("Jeff's World, Jeff's World, party-time").
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