SEO Tracker: Oddschecker and Paddy Power pull away in sportsbook sector

Long-time leaders Oddschecker and Paddy Power look to be increasing their stronghold of the organic search market, with the two brands growing their organic visibility at the expense of the competition.

Oddschecker remains the market leader, with the comparison site increasing its dominance with a 43% increase in monthly clicks from August 2022, earning an estimated 95,796 clicks each month from non-brand search. Beneath Oddschecker, Paddy Power has managed to increase its lead over third-placed William Hill by 43,567, to earn just over 80,000 monthly clicks.

The market as a whole has seen a 15% increase in search volume, and it is clear to see that the top two brands are the main beneficiaries of these 135,450 extra clicks, both seeing their organic traffic increase by over 40%.

Oddschecker and Paddy Power may have built a much larger lead over their competition, but the gap between the two of them remains similar. Oddschecker has seen its lead extend slightly to 12,793 monthly clicks, but Paddy Power now ranks for a greater number of keywords and has a better average ranking across those keywords.

This of course means that Oddschecker’s advantage comes from ranking for high-volume terms.

World Cup boost

As our research period covered the duration of the Qatar World Cup, Oddschecker capitalised on the increased interest in betting on tournament-specific keywords, with a number of position one rankings for high-volume keywords.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Oddschecker’s organic rankings is the sheer volume of position one rankings the brand has. Ranking in position one for 441 keywords, which generate a total of 76,709 monthly clicks, gives Oddschecker a dominant position in the rankings. As such a large portion of these keywords receive a medium level of keyword searches, Oddschecker is also much less at risk of fluctuations than if the brand was relying on a few high-volume terms.

Interestingly, Oddschecker also received a boost in their traffic from a keyword for which they don’t rank so highly. Receiving 135,000 monthly searches ‘betting calculator’ is such an important keyword that Oddschecker’s improvement from position 19 to position seven has resulted in an increase of over 4,200 monthly clicks.

With this kind of traffic reaching position seven, rivals will be hoping that Oddschecker doesn’t climb any further up the rankings for this keyword.

Paddy Power, meanwhile, held firm in position three for ‘betting calculator’, but saw improvements elsewhere.

The brand has increased its position one rankings from 82 to 106 search terms, but crucially they are terms which drive traffic, including ‘betting’, which now generates 9,773 clicks for the site. ‘Betting’ is one of the keywords that has resulted in an increase in traffic to Paddy Power’s site from position one keywords, up from 11,995 monthly clicks in August to 28,420 now. If Paddy Power is able to continue competing for the top rankings when it comes to high-volume keywords, the brand may be able to start closing the gap on Oddschecker.

High visibility

In the months leading up to our last analysis in August, William Hill had seen the largest growth of the 10 most visible brands and looked to be in a strong position to challenge the two leading names. However, from that promising position the brand’s traffic has dropped slightly while Oddschecker and Paddy Power have seen considerable growth. This has left William Hill as leaders of the chasing pack rather than competing with the most visible brands.

Despite ranking for a greater number of keywords than in August, William Hill’s lower average ranking and loss of traffic indicates that rankings in traffic-generating positions have decreased, such as ‘golf betting’, which has gone from position one to three. This makes it one of 21 keywords for which William Hill has lost its position one ranking, something that the brand will be looking to amend in the coming months to start gaining ground on the top two brands, a task that has become much more difficult in recent months.

Behind these brands that have cemented the top three spots in terms of visibility, Sky Bet is the big winner of the chasing pack. Since August, traffic has nearly doubled from 17,038 to 30,346 monthly clicks, meaning that it is now the fourth most visible brand in the sector. Ranking for a large number of keywords but with a worse average ranking than their competitors, there is undoubtedly room for further improvement, so it will be interesting to see if this growth in visibility continues, considering that, for the most part, the other brands in the top 10 received similar traffic to August, generally showing slight decreases but nothing too concerning for the brands.