Are legal affiliates turning to ‘Grey Hat’ SEO?

The expired domain “pizza-francorchamps.be” was purchased at the end of March to promote… legal casinos. Are legal affiliates determined to use the same techniques as illegal casinos? We investigated for you.  

Until now, grey hat SEO was the preserve of illegal casinos and their affiliates, but during a search we stumbled upon a pizzeria website that had been hijacked… for legal affiliate marketing. A situation that is surprising to say the least.

From pepperoni to the jackpot, SEO hijacking is on the rise

The case of the pizza-francorchamps.be website is a perfect illustration of ‘domain grabbing’, or the purchase of expired domains. On 24 March, the domain name became available and was purchased via an American website.

For several months now, this technique has been used by illegal casinos. It allows them to inherit the SEO authority of a former site and climb rapidly in Google’s search results.

This is what happened to Arjan van Dijk. After his company went bankrupt, his website’s URL was bought to promote illegal gambling. This example is just one among many, and we could write an article a day on the subject. 

What’s different here is the use of this method to promote legal Belgian operators. The site consists of a single page, featuring a list of the top 14 legal casinos in Belgium. Several of these sites feature affiliate links, but employ questionable technical practices:

• Partial cloaking: The site retains its “Pizzeria” identity on Google My Business to evade detection, but displays a casino comparison once on the page.
• Forced redirects: Links supposedly leading to various partners systematically redirect to a single operator (Loco Casino), suggesting aggressive configuration or link hijacking.
• Misuse of authority: Using Francorchamps’ local reputation to capture ‘casino’ traffic is a practice that borders on illegality.

In January, the site was still dedicated to the pizzeria:

Now the site is entirely dedicated to legal casinos:

Play the transparency card

For months, we have been informing you about these practices to warn you and advise you to always remain cautious. It was easy when these fake rankings and hacked sites only linked to illegal platforms. But if legal affiliates are getting involved too, how can you tell the difference?

The simplest thing to do is always to check whether a casino is legal before playing. You can find the full list of all legal casinos directly on our website or by visiting the Gaming Commission’s website, which lists all legal casinos along with their licence numbers and official websites.

Is this really the work of a legitimate affiliate?

It is difficult to answer this question. For the time being, the site only lists legal casinos and all links lead either to the same page or to a legal casino.

Some sites display lists of legal casinos on desktop but show something else on mobile, to deceive search engine bots. This is not the case here; on mobile, the site is exactly the same, with the same links.

However, this does not guarantee that the site is run by legitimate affiliates. Some affiliate groups specialising in illegal content start by building authority through lists of legitimate casinos, only to change everything overnight once they have gained players’ trust.

The question therefore remains open.

What is Grey Hat SEO?

The case of the hijacked pizzeria falls under what experts call Grey Hat SEO, halfway between practices authorised by Google (White Hat) and prohibited or manipulative practices (Black Hat). 

Grey Hat SEO is therefore a grey area within search engine optimisation. Unlike White Hat SEO, which relies on patience and quality, or Black Hat SEO, which openly flouts the rules, Grey Hat SEO uses techniques that exploit loopholes or ambiguities in the guidelines to accelerate a website’s rise in rankings.

The best-known Grey Hat SEO techniques include buying backlinks to boost a site’s authority whilst striving to make them appear natural to Google, or purchasing expired domain names with a solid track record to redirect traffic to them.