After a decline in searches and visibility last summer, the online poker market as a whole now appears to have a much better hand, with total searches up 46% since August 2025. At the top of the table is PokerStars, followed by 888 Poker and partypoker, with former leader 247FreePoker sliding down to the middle of the table.
However, visibility as a whole has significantly increased, with competitors consistently ranking for larger selections of keywords, as well as the number of ranked keywords growing.
Increase in ranked keywords benefits top three
Jumping to the top of the visibility leaderboard is PokerStars, with an increase of 1,527 estimated clicks and 146 ranking keywords, followed by 888poker with an increase of 1,226 estimated clicks and 117 keywords. Both these competitors have more than doubled their original keyword breadth, and this has enabled them to capitalise on the increased overall searches and the increase in ranked keywords.
Interestingly, partypoker in third place has surged in growth for a different reason. While the top two have a similar share of overall visibility to what they did last August, partypoker has almost doubled its visibility share despite gaining fewer keyword rankings.
This means it was more efficiently able to take advantage of the overall market growth, especially when we consider that – due to many of the new keywords gained not yet having a strong ranking position – both PokerStars and 888poker have a significantly higher weighted average.
Taking this into account, it will be interesting to see the growth patterns of these three competitors in the coming months. Will partypoker continue its steady rise, and will PokerStars and 888poker be able to consolidate their gains in the newest set of ranked keywords?
Gains in visibility spread down the table
As previously mentioned, overall search traffic has increased massively, as has the number of ranked keywords, which has risen by 366 since August 2025. This has translated into significantly more visibility across the competitors in fourth to 10th places, with each competitor ranking for more keywords, and those in the middle of the table in particular doubling their keywords.
This has meant the two competitors with the fewest ranking keywords in August 2025, GGPoker and PokerScout, have fallen out of the top 10, to be replaced by Betfred and Unibet.
Here, it is also helpful to compare the change in the keywords themselves. While ‘poker’ and ‘Texas holdem’ remain the most searched, we have seen an increase of 34,090 searches for dynamic terms involving ‘play’ or ‘game’, ie ‘play poker’ as opposed to discovery terms like ‘poker online’. This has had two main effects: firstly, it enables users to filter out informational sites like Wikipedia in favour of sites where you can play the game.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, these searches are increasingly leading to poker apps ahead of established poker platforms such as those in the above graph, which suggests apps are also using SEO to drive engagement and compete with traditional platforms. This, however, can be at least partially mitigated by Google’s trust tools.
Where do trust tools come in?
An important factor to consider within these search engine results is Google’s prioritisation of experience, expertise, authority and trust (EEAT) factors. This means priority is often given to sites considered reliable sources of news and information, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica or Wikipedia, both of which rank highly for discovery keywords.
While these are often valuable sources when learning the rules for different games, they do not often enable the user to play the game itself. This may explain the above change in popular search terms. Adding ‘play’ means these sites are less likely to come to the fore of any Google search.
This may be a reassuring factor when we consider the increasing popularity of apps. A lot of them are new, and therefore will currently rank lower in authority or trust scores than traditional websites. Because competitors such as PokerStars are strongly established, they will be considered more trustworthy and topical sources of poker news and information according to these metrics, and therefore rank higher in keyword searches.
This is especially visible with PlayWSOP. The World Series of Poker is renowned for being an internationally recognised poker tournament, and thus scores highly in EEAT, putting this competitor in a unique position and boosting its increase in ranked keywords to allow it to move up to fourth place.
Overall, here are three key takeaways from what we have seen in the online poker market:
- A surge in overall searches and keyword coverage has strengthened the market enormously, increasing overall visibility. This has meant the competitors with the broadest range of ranked keywords have come out on top.
- Increasing keywords is not the only way to succeed. While the top two competitors have both doubled their ranking keywords, they have also increased their weighted average by doing so. In contrast, partypoker has almost doubled its visibility share by focusing instead on higher-value keywords instead of newer ones, which has kept its weighted average down.
- Keyword trends are shifting more towards dynamic intent, moving traffic from solely informational sites towards operators and apps. The former are helped by Google’s EEAT preferences, as they are strongly established and therefore considered more reliable, as well as being considered more topical due to having more recent news than apps might.
To find out more about how Stickyeyes could help your brand to establish and maintain organic growth in the poker market and beyond, please reach out to William Conboy, director of igaming by Stickyeyes at William.conboy@stickyeyes.com
The post Stickyeyes: Positive news for UK poker sector as searches surge 46% since August first appeared on EGR Intel.
PokerStars and 888poker more than double their keyword breadth to top clickshare table, while GGPoker and PokerScout are replaced in the top 10 by Betfred and Unibet
The post Stickyeyes: Positive news for UK poker sector as searches surge 46% since August first appeared on EGR Intel.