More content seems to have the opposite effect to SEO

**Betarena** · 3 March 2021, 9:41 am

Hello everyone!

I take this opportunity to share our latest experience in Google results.

Betarena has been producing content through artificial intelligence for some time now. We publish more than 500 betting tips per day.

However, recently we have realized that when we have more content, we are penalized in the positions and indexing of Google. Having several betting tips that aren't even indexed in the Google search engine, the message is that the link was found but not added to the index.

Has anyone had similar experiences?

Our websites:

https://www,betarena.com
https://apostas.betarena.com

**gil.langelaan** · 3 March 2021, 11:07 am

The issue in quality I think.

Probably your content not really optimized.

I have read an article about this issue that too much content per short period of time will hurt your SEO as it looks too spammy.

A few articles per week but long and expert will boost your rankings.

**chaumi** · 3 March 2021, 11:52 am

Well if you're talking about these types of tips you're posting....necaxa-vs-pachuca...there is no way that can be considered to be thin content. In fact it looks strong....

...and I would have expected Google to know that a tips website might be throwing out multiple tips content pages.

Which suggests there might be something else at play.

I only looked on desktop...but as soon as the page loads (and it was slightly slow) I got a big popup (hugely annoying) where you can't see the x to get rid of it (if you don't know where it is from experience)...and when you click the x it again takes longer than ideal to disappear.

It might be that G are seeing it as a negative page experience marker (but that will more likely to have come about in Apr/May)...but maybe on mobile you don't have it anyway.

**Betarena** · 3 March 2021, 12:05 pm

As for the volume of content, we understood that when we increased the number of predictions shortly afterward, our visits were affected.

The popup is really intrusive even though it only appears 3x, and then it will not be seen again. The point is that this has always existed since 2018 and has never been a reason to have fewer visits. We even deactivated for 1 week and had no impact on visits.

**chaumi** · 3 March 2021, 12:55 pm

Just an idea, first thought, I haven't looked.....but if they're being produced artificially could it be that significant portions of the content are the same...the same enough to trigger a duplicate flag somehow

**Slawete** · 3 March 2021, 12:56 pm

Originally Posted by Betarena

The popup is really intrusive even though it only appears 3x, and then it will not be seen again.

It's 3x time irking. I have never understood this kind of things. What's the point? Do that trick really increase the conversion? I personally avoid these sites, mostly because I feel disrespected.

**mediapartner** · 3 March 2021, 3:37 pm

i definately think it is the quality of the content. google is getting smarter each day and if you just use templates and change some words it will be seen as low quality or even spam.

im not saying the content is spam, but checking a few of the tips i can clearly see those are not hand-written. Instead they look very auto-generated. Things like city name, date, place, previous results... those things seem to be auto fetched from database to make it look like unique content.... only few words differ for each page.

Most of the times this works for a while, but it can sometimes also have a bad impact. it can even been seen as blackhat seo... as 99% of all betting tip pages are using the same content/template, only spinning some minor details as mentioned above..

But its always hard to say. you can say it isnt spam as its clearly helpful for your visitors... but as even i immediately got the “auto generated content” feeling, i can imagine google thinks the same... anyway, im not an expert on seo, but perhaps its best to do some heavy testing with and without the ai-content to see if you jotice changes...

another idea would be to limit the amount of newly created betting tip pages. instead update older ones with the new data. else you would end up with thousands of betting tip for the same matches (not sure if you already do this, havent fully checked as there were so many pages).

and offcourse google doesnt make it a secret that it highly appreciates unique content. so hand writting and not auto created..so try to avoid those things.

offtopic: the popup caused a lot of irritation on my side as well...keeps popping up, sometimes even impossible to hide or close.

**tufty** · 3 March 2021, 3:40 pm

Originally Posted by mediapartner

offtopic: the popup caused a lot of irritation on my side as well...keeps popping up, sometimes even impossible to hide or close.

That's not off topic, but highly relevant.

**casino2k.com** · 4 March 2021, 1:18 am

First: that popup is really intrusive. Clicking X doesn't close it but open a new tab redirecting to your partner.

Second: I think you are trying to use AI to trick Google's AI. The best scenario is losing some more traffic. The worst one is being banned.

In my opinion you should look at your site with Google Quality Raters Guidelines in mind.

**chaumi** · 4 March 2021, 2:10 am

Just looking at a couple side by side they looked different enough to me, though I didn't compare everything and maybe just my eyesight. But if you consider you've been churning out thousands of these, many would be similar enough to trigger a duplicate content flag. Which might explain why some get indexed and some don't (if that's what's happening now)

I'd be thinking.

1. How much (what percentage) do my pages vary if I compare say 50 of them? Can I prove this theory (try to choose relevant matches to compare - same league etc) But maybe you already know!
2. Do old/expired pages stay published? They have no real value right? (after the game, other than as a statistical record to see if the stats gave an accurate representation of what might happen in the match?) Maybe a potential answer is to delete/deindex old/expired pages to lessen the chances that new ones are seen as duplicate.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 3:38 am

Originally Posted by chaumi

Just an idea, first thought, I haven't looked.....but if they're being produced artificially could it be that significant portions of the content are the same...the same enough to trigger a duplicate flag somehow

I am not sure if it is being considered duplicate content. There are alerts when this happens, and the structure of the narratives, despite following a pattern, have phrases that vary, and the data are always different from game to game.

However, we are already adding new narratives and structures to increase diversity.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 3:42 am

Originally Posted by Slawete

It's 3x time irking. I have never understood this kind of things. What's the point? Do that trick really increase the conversion? I personally avoid these sites, mostly because I feel disrespected.

I understand the point, and we consider alternative solutions in the future, but it really has a very high conversion.

We understand that it can be tedious for users, but it is a minor annoyance to benefit from all the content we produce for free.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 3:53 am

Originally Posted by mediapartner

offtopic: the popup caused a lot of irritation on my side as well...keeps popping up, sometimes even impossible to hide or close.

Thanks for the review.

Every day the artificial intelligence system improves and creates new phrases and variations.

Considering that they are predictions for football games and that if we want to cover most of the championships, it will be impossible to do so through content written manually.

Even if they are written manually, following a logic/structure at the end of 200 predictions, will they be so different from each other?

Anyway, we will continue to improve and diversify the content to be increasingly complete and diversified. We hope that this will bring the results we desire for.

I think the solution will go through trial and error.

The option to create content through artificial intelligence aims to cover the largest number of games possible to respond to the demand for information on the part of bettors who like to bet in several leagues and not only in the main ones.

An alternative may be to place secondary league predictions as no-index, so we continue to satisfy the need of bettors without overwhelming the search engines' with thousands of betting tips.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 3:57 am

Originally Posted by casino2k.com

First: that popup is really intrusive. Clicking X doesn't close it but open a new tab redirecting to your partner.

Second: I think you are trying to use AI to trick Google's AI. The best scenario is losing some more traffic. The worst one is being banned.

In my opinion you should look at your site with Google Quality Raters Guidelines in mind.

This is definitely not the reason for using artificial intelligence to create content.

The quality of the predictions is relatively high and will continue to improve. The content created by AI is not banned by Google and will become an everyday reality, especially for this type of content that lasts for 2 or 3 days.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 4:05 am

Originally Posted by chaumi

Just looking at a couple side by side they looked different enough to me, though I didn't compare everything and maybe just my eyesight. But if you consider you've been churning out thousands of these, many would be similar enough to trigger a duplicate content flag. Which might explain why some get indexed and some don't (if that's what's happening now)

I'd be thinking.

1. How much (what percentage) do my pages vary if I compare say 50 of them? Can I prove this theory (try to choose relevant matches to compare - same league etc) But maybe you already know!
2. Do old/expired pages stay published? They have no real value right? (after the game, other than as a statistical record to see if the stats gave an accurate representation of what might happen in the match?) Maybe a potential answer is to delete/deindex old/expired pages to lessen the chances that new ones are seen as duplicate.

Thanks for the review.

Without a doubt, the betting tips have a lot of differences, but by joining hundreds, the patterns will be more easily identifiable.

I assume that Google's logic will be too many predictions for human-written content and pattern identification, resulting in less relevance.

Our solution will be to create more variety and complexity in the narratives. Different structures for different leagues and put no-index for secondary leagues, then we will analyze the results.

Deleting previous publications has been considered, but we always doubt whether this will be a good strategy. Maybe put older predictions as no-index?

Whenever I visit prediction sites, I check that it keeps the history. That makes me think if eliminating resolves anything, not least because those sites where I check that it keeps the content have many visits and are very relevant in the market.

**Mattbar** · 4 March 2021, 4:19 am

It comes down to the same point that comes up over and over again, what is most useful for the user is not necessarily best for google. Unfortunately things that are less relevant often do better than things that are more relevant if that content plays the google game better.

Looking at the content there is good depth in the previews but the title and structure always follow the same design. I can see why on this basis if you suddenly ramp up the output google could see these as possibly being doorway pages.

As you've suggested different structures, vary the title format, archive off old previews, etc., will all likely help.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 6:06 am

Thanks for the opinion.

Let's do this and see if it helps with the results.

I'll leave here updates on the results.

**Jiveman** · 4 March 2021, 6:56 am

I agree that the pop-up is a no-go.

1: It is annoying
2: It slows down the page
3: It annoys Google
4: It can cause a trademark infringement
5: The operator you are promoting wouldn't like to see the banner

**xecutable** · 4 March 2021, 7:11 am

Even if they are written manually, following a logic/structure at the end of 200 predictions, will they be so different from each other?

While they would look similar, it's very unlikely for a human writer to be able to maintain the same structure, flow and words for over 10 pages, maybe even less? Two hundred pages with the exact flow with not even 1% difference would imply automation.

We can just guess what Google didn't like, but from what I see the user experience with that popup is awful. In addition the Lighthouse performance score for desktop is 50% and for mobile 14%.

At the end of the day, the AI process has the purpose to easy up your efforts rather than improve the user's experience. From 2009 till the end of 2017 I as well ran a tipster website, somewhat successfully. I can tell you Google does not like content with 2-3-5d expiration dates lying around. In addition, while 500 tips a day is a huge number, when the round is over in 3 days you are left with 1500 pages of EXPIRED content.

I myself would most likely head to a website with a lot fewer tips, but that has spent the time and effort to carefully examine the games and carefully present them to the public. If anyone is up to date and still has insight one the whole situation that'd be TheGooner.

I still have most of my sports betting articles linking towards his website, because I know the users will find what they are looking for when it comes to tips.

Now whether he'd add anything to this thread or not is his decision, but I'd look around and take some pointers.

**Betarena** · 4 March 2021, 7:29 am

Thanks for the opinion.

There are well over 1% differences between the content, but I agree that they are standardized on a structure that must be improved and diversified. We are working on it.

I disagree with the view that a human manages to have better insights into a game and of greater value than predictions generated through artificial intelligence based on massive datasets. Nor will it ever be possible to have the variety of analyzes that AI allows. But this will be a different discussion about human vs. machine content.

Honestly, 80% of the websites about football predictions that I find on the internet do not have the quality that we include in our predictions.

I understand the volume of content, so maybe what we can do to improve it will be the format and the ease with which the user can access what he is really looking for and what interests him.

As for the time that this type of content lasts, it is a reality that there is no way to change, just as the news portals have millions of publications that 1 day later have already expired, which is done in this case, remove the news because they stopped being current? Or do they stop publishing because they have a shorter duration?

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