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10/18/09 - The Internet search engine and information giant Google appears to have stepped back from the alleged imposition of search engine penalties on Media Corporation's Gambling.com two years ago, according to reports over the weekend in the Independent newspaper.
Media Corp chief exec Justin Drummond told the newspaper that he has never been able to fully understand the reasons for the apparent penalities that could have cost his company hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost revenues.
In 2007 Drummond tracked a dramatic drop in Gambling.com's ranking from a top spot of about 100th on the search term "gambling" that he estimates could have cost the company around GBP 1 million in lost business.
Media Corp bought Gambling.com for GBP 11 million in 2005 and announced a GBP 2.7 million post-tax profit the following year. The business had already been hit by restrictive US internet gambling laws introduced in 2006, but the alleged penalties exacerbated the problems.
Drummond told The Independent that the penalty appeared to have been lifted last Friday morning, marking the end of a busy week for Media Corp. in which it acquired Malta-based poker group Purple Lounge for GBP 465 000.
I still don't see gambling.com in the top 30 at Google for "gambling." From my experience with search engine optimization, I can say that, most likely, gambling.com showed and now doesn't show unethical techniques for high organic rankings. I can also say that this domain will be profitable in the next 20 years, simply because of it's easy to remember url name.