IGB AWRDS 2013 Best Newcomer or not ?.....

[Rakenews.com]

Dear members of GPWA,

We would like to hear your opinion about an issue we have with the IGB AWARDS 2013.

We have set nomination in the category BEST NEWCOMER AFFILIATE and after the complaints of our colleagues, members and our research we have found that:

The company gambling.com known to all us for the remarkable presence in the area of gambling since 1998 ran as BEST NEWCOMER AFFILIATE on the ground that since 2011 is under new management.

A brief look at the statistics of the company:

 google page rank 5
 google index : About 2,270 results for gambling.com
 Alexa global rank 137,231 & 2,805 sites links there
 According the internet archive the brand is in the market since 1998http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.gambling.com

We are coming now to the criteria that IGB has set as a condition to participate to the category Best Newcomer Affiliate:
“We ask voters to consider the following key criteria:
• Greatest Promise
• Growth
• Reputation in the market (players and affiliates)
• Marketing Tools and collateral
• Brand
• Innovation
• Rank for key search terms
• Ethics ”
Thus apparent a reasonable question, a real newcomer to the area, taking into consideration these criteria can compete with gambling.com?

Is supposed to this category should be recognized and rewarded the efforts of a new company in this competitive space.

How then a new company will compete a brand that exists at least for ten years and which has kept all the stats of the previous years?

How true is as an argument that if a brand changed its management can be regarded as newcomer?

To which criteria the real newcomers in the field will be able to compete;
We asked ourselves if they had made a mistake and we have set these questions to IGB with a proposal to set gambling.com to the category BEST AFFILIATE where we reasonably believe that should be competing, taking in consideration its long term presence in the area.

We would like to emphasize that we have no problem with the company gamblimg.com and that we simply believe that its participation to the Newcomer’s category is not correct for the reasons we already mentioned.

We believe that the IGB Affiliate Awards is an admirable institution in our area (gambling industry) but in the specific category Best Newcomer Affiliate should only be accepted to participate are the new websites launched this year. Brands that have re-launched under new management or are not new to the gambling industry should not be accepted to the Newcomer’s category.

The specific Post is by no means to rebuke the IGB Affiliate Awards is just a disagreement from one also participating in the same category and some suggestions for improvement to the criteria of this category.

[kaxdublin]

I manage Gambling.com. Every positive thing you had to say about Gambling.com was achieved within the past year. The current site, by the way, was launched in January 2012. We only purchased the domain from its past owners- no players, no deals, nothing else but the domain. At the time of purchase the site was:

- doing on average 0 new players a month
- had recently been penalized by Google
- was predominantly worthless US traffic at a very small scale
- had negative brand equity with operators, thus making it quite hard to make deals

Based on your standards, only domains purchased/registered for the first time in 2012 are eligible for this award? I suspect that most sites in this category would be out of the running based on this logic.

In the past year we have grown Gambling.com into one of the top Casino and Gambling affiliates with second to none marketing and UI. All these items you mentioned- pagerank, number of google index results, etc have been achieved in the past year. Thus I think there is plenty of validity to saying that we are the best newcomer, being that we have seen such dramatic results in one year. We have done this through hard work, great execution and a smart strategy.

Nothing about this current site is related to whats previously been on that slice of internet real estate.

The fact that there is this much discussion of our inclusion being so unfair actually makes me feel great. I know we have done our job, because one year ago nobody would have complained or said anything. The best part is we are just getting started.

[mojo]

I think the award is for Best Newcomer Affiliate. I don't think it was for just the website. I have no idea who owns gambling.com or if they are a new affilate.

Are the owner(s) new affiliates? The domain isn't new and had a hefty price tag. Is this an unfair advantage? This would be based on solely the relaunch and not the affy? I'm so confused lol.

I think the awards are nice but I have to admit I don't keep up on them. It doesn't matter to me but now I'm curious. If I bought and launched a new site I don't think I would be eligible for this category or that it would be in the spirit of a true newcomer. Or am I reading that wrong?

[Rakenews.com]

Dear members of GPWA community,

We are glad to hear the opinion of gambling.com about its participation as best newcomer affiliate. We also want to emphasize that we don’t have any personal problems with gambling.com or KAX Media. As participants in IGB best newcomer affiliate awards, we have carefully examined all the participants before posting to GPWAforum (in order to read more opinions), our partners contacted IGB to hear their opinion about this issue.

The answer of IGB was “that on the face of it the site represents an unfair advantage however this usually balanced out when it comes to the judges and in fact more often within the voting”.

Our question from the beginning was about who is considered as a newcomer affiliate.

Our company Rakenews Ltd. established in 2012 and our site rakenews.com launched in July, 2012. So we think that we are fairly participating as a newcomer affiliate.
According to KAX Media Linkedin profile (http://www.linkedin.com/company/kax-media?trk=tabs_biz_home) the company was originally founded in 2006 and owns 5 gambling related products, of which one of them is gambling.com that was sold to KAX Media in April 2011. KAX Media re- launched gambling.com in January 2012.
Also, in their “about” section at gambling.com, they clearly confirm that they are working in the online gaming industry since2003.

Also, we would like to give you some clarifications on the assertions of gambling.com manager.
“- had recently been penalized by Google” from our research gambling.com has penalized by Google in 2007 and the penalty has lifted in October of 2009.Below you can find links with more info:
http://www.engageweb.co.uk/how-damaging-can-a-google-penalty-really-be-to-your-business-1152.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354391,00.asp
From October of 2009, the gambling.com brand had well improved its statistics until the day it was sold to KAX Media and re-launched by them. So as conclusion you have bought a brand that was operating in the same industry for many years.

Below, you can see from web.archive.org the different phases of gambling.com:
2007 http://web.archive.org/web/20070828002937/http://www.gambling.com/
2008 http://web.archive.org/web/20081214082809/http://www.gambling.com/
2009 http://web.archive.org/web/20091111044830/http://www.gambling.com/
2010 http://web.archive.org/web/20101114015148/http://www.gambling.com/
2011 http://web.archive.org/web/20110725075228/http://www.gambling.com/

So can you consider gambling.com as newcomer affiliate only because the brand sold and re-launched by a new owner?
For example, think that pokerstrategy (or any other well-known company) sells its domain and the new owner redesigns and re-launches it and after that he applies for newcomer affiliate awards.
We leave the final conclusion to your judgment.

[universal4]

Yea CasinoCity could launch a new domain and win every year.

I think the statement about the US traffic being worthless at the time of purchase is way off base though. If the previous owners of the domain were not getting anything out of that traffic then they should have done something to improve that picture, but the traffic was not worthless I am sure.

Also, in their “about” section at gambling.com, they clearly confirm that they are working in the online gaming industry since2003.

That is very interesting though.

I am actually surprised a bit by the name getting the award as well due to the past history they have, and many of us here helped push them to the plateau they reached at one time many moons ago. In fact my guess is that many many thosands of links pointing at the name are left over from the old days...heck I have run into some on some of my pages occassionally. (although that hasn't happened for a long time)

But if your splitting hairs the rakebacknews site was purchased in 2011.

Do I think they should pull the award? Absolutely NOT!

They might take a look at the category though and define the criteria a little more for the future so that others might not feel slighted.

Rick
Universal4

[mojo]

Dear members of GPWA community,

The answer of IGB was “that on the face of it the site represents an unfair advantage however this usually balanced out when it comes to the judges and in fact more often within the voting”.

Our question from the beginning was about who is considered as a newcomer affiliate.

We leave the final conclusion to your judgment.

That is double speak. lol

I don't know how these rewards/awards work or how important they are. I could care less. But this is crazy and laughable.

IGB is pitting a 2.5 million dollar domain against 'newbies'. I thought we were supposed to support and help new affiliates. How do they compete with this kind of bankroll?

What baffles me is why gambling.com would want to be here at all. I am surprised the manager posted. Is it because you will get to post the award on your site? Why not go to a different catagory?

Alex, do you have 'most improved' or 'honorable mention' or something?

The OP seems genuinely concerned and legitimate. This just seems wrong, perhaps Alex could enlighten us..

Thanks!

[TheGooner]

You could argue either way - certainly you could have "Best new site" and "best new affiliate" - and I'm not sure that gambling.com or Kaxmedia would fit either criteria ... but there are similar unequal situations in all the categories - it's just part and parcel of any industry and token awards.

For example we've been nominated for best sports betting affiliate (again!) which is great ... but there is zero chance of the GoonersGuide.com site actually winning the category as we also have organisations like BetBrain with 40+ employees in the category. As many of metrics considered are volume based it's no surprise that the big employee based organisations will dominate.

You could easily argue that each vertical channel in gambling of sports, casino, bingo, poker could also be split into small (<5), medium (5-20), large (20+) employee groups - but who really wants to sit through all those awards? IN the end - it's a bit of fun rather than a serious evaluation of your progress so far ...

My advice? Just be happy to be nominated.

[mojo]

You could argue either way - certainly you could have "Best new site" and "best new affiliate" - and I'm not sure that gambling.com or Kaxmedia would fit either criteria ... but there are similar unequal situations in all the categories - it's just part and parcel of any industry and token awards.

Congrats on being nominated Gooner.

We are not talking about the whole entire process here however. It's not about 'thank you for my nomination'. lol. I'm thinking the oscar awards. LOL I didn't know these awards were so important.

Were are talking about THIS case.

Would like to hear from Alex so we all understand.

[universal4]

Yes Gooner congrats on being nominated.

Rick
Universal4