After being knocked down the search rankings of Google for protocol violations, PartyPoker has rebounded over the past month, albeit only slightly.

In April, Google reportedly determined that by artificially generating inbound links, bwin.party and its PartyPoker brand were violating the rules of their rankings. This resulted in a disappearance of the brand from pretty much any search that involved poker. Over the course of the last month, however, PokerScout and its weekly Scouting Report have been able to determine that the room has been able to work its way back into the rankings for different search terms, but nowhere near as strong as it once was.

According to the PokerScout report, bwin.party and partypoker formerly appeared in each of the top 20 for major search terms regarding poker. After the penalty, the site dropped to only eight of the 20 and continues to stay at that level as we approach the end of May.

When it comes to its ranking, PartyPoker has been able to improve from 15th to 14th for the search term “internet poker” after being as high as third prior to the penalties. When a person looks up “play poker,” PartyPoker has improved to 17th place over last month’s 21st place.

Once ranked fourth when people searched for “poker,” PartyPoker now no longer appears in the Google search results for that term. The site has also fallen off for the search term “poker sites” after being as high as third on Google. Other phrases such as “online poker” (in 23rd place after being as high as fourth) and “poker sites” (an improvement to 30th place, but vastly down from fourth), have also taken a tumble.

Why would this matter to a company such as PartyPoker? Through the usage of search engine optimization, companies can get a cornucopia of advertising from search engines such as Google and Bing without having to spend a dime. In bringing potential customers to its site, companies look to convert them to paying customers and, naturally, increase their revenues. With the penalties applied by Google, PokerScout estimates that PartyPoker has lost about 5% of its traffic in a short time frame.

The Google penalties have also hurt PartyPoker’s positioning in PokerScout’s rankings of the busiest online poker sites in terms of cash game volume. PartyPoker now ranks fourth on PokerScout. Behind the monolith that is PokerStars(22,500 cash game players on average over seven days), 888 Poker (2,100 players), and iPoker (1,800 players), PartyPoker currently has a seven-day average of 1,600 players in its cash games.

In the United States, PartyPoker’s operations in New Jersey have taken a hit also. Once far and away the leader in that burgeoning market, Party/Borgata has seen its lead over WSOP.com shrink to only 30 players on average.

PokerScout’s Scouting Report is a daily newsletter for the online poker industry, with in-depth data and analysis of the market. More information can be found by clicking here or contacting support@pokerscout.com.

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