Dominating the World's Most Competitive Keywords (While Breaking Every SEO Rule)

There are salamanders in Texas actively dismantling their own eyeballs. Generation by generation, they're evolving away from vision because eyes cost energy and darkness makes sight useless. These blind creatures dominate their ecosystems as apex predators.

SEO has a similar problem. We build "universal" best practices by studying WordPress sites and Shopify stores - maybe 12% of web complexity. Then we act surprised when those practices fail for complex applications. We're exploring caves near the parking lot and assuming all caves work the same way.

At Stake, we rank #1 for "online casino" in the most competitive markets while failing Core Web Vitals. We haven't done a redirect in two years. One robots.txt change tripled our indexed pages. 50% of our sportsbook traffic comes from keywords that don't exist in Ahrefs or SEMrush.

This talk explores why the sermon isn't the science - what Google says matters versus what actually moves rankings.

The salamander evolved for its specific cave, not for environments it would never encounter.

Maybe your website should do the same.

Presented at Search Marketing Conference Melbourne, November 2025

Transcript

1. Dominating the World's Most Competitive Keywords (While Breaking Every SEO Rule) Peter Macinkovic SEO Lead Easygo Gaming Search Marketing Conference - November 2025
2. ➔ SEO Lead at Easygo Gaming ◆ Behind Stake.com (largest online casino) ◆ Kick (live-streaming platform) ◆ Winner: Global Search Awards (Best Search Campaign: Gaming) ◆ 15+ years Tech & SEO across Australia's biggest brands Who’s Speaking & Why It Matters Hi, I’m Peter Macinkovic
3. “Online casino” Traffic [REDACTED]/m +9,235% YoY Value $[REDACTED]/m +13,894% YoY Keywords 2,056 +164% YoY “Slots” Traffic [REDACTED]/m +9,219% YoY Value $[REDACTED]/m +5,891% YoY Keywords 3,648 +254% YoY
4. The Texas Blind Salamander ➔ Meet Eurycea Rathbuni ◆ There are salamanders in Texas dismantling their own eyeballs ◆ Generation by generation, because vision costs energy in darkness ◆ They dominate their ecosystem without sight
5. Blind Salamanders Dominate Caves
6. Only 1-5% of Caves Explored
7. The 99.99999% Problem ➔ Strong Brand, Weak SEO ◆ Stake was already a billion-dollar company in 2022 ◆ Traffic was 99.99999% brand searches ◆ Invisible in organic search
8. Nine Months in the Dark Custom CMS Sitemaps & Robots.txt Technical SEO
9. Evolution is a Slow Process SEO Team Lives Peter begins on Jan 6. 2022 Content Scales 2nd hire begins on Jan 16. 2023 Languages Explode 3rd hire begins on Sep 25. 2023 Increase in Budget 4th hire begins on Aug 29. 2024 Team Grows 4 More Team Members Join Q1 2025
10. WEIRD = Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic Why SEO Advice is WEIRD (Literally)
11. The 12% Problem • Almost all academia is based on 12% • WEIRD people are outliers. Weirdos.
12. • 12% of the web becomes 100% SEO Advice • We study the same websites on the top SEO Has the Same Problem
13. What Google Says vs What Actually Happens
14. ➔ Doctrine vs Reality ◆ "Core Web Vitals are important" We fail CWV, rank #1 ◆ "Don't use priority in sitemaps" We use it, 99% indexing ◆ "Changefreq doesn't work" Works for us The Gospel According to Google
15. HTTPS is a Real Update ◆ Year 1: ~50% adoption ◆ Year 5: 90% adoption ◆ Today: Try ranking without it ◆ Barrier collapsed (LetsEncrypt, Cloudflare) HTTPS vs Core Web Vitals
16. ➔ Core Web Vitals is Theatre ◆ Big sites still slow ◆ 60% of website fail CWV (AWR, 2022) ◆ Not much better in 2025 ◆ React/Next.js dominate ◆ Top sites fail CWV HTTPS vs Core Web Vitals
17. Why CWV Will Never Matter
18. Techniques That Shouldn’t Work (But Do)
19. The Heresy of No Redirects ➔ Limitation Became Weapon ◆ Can't do redirects easily (requires pull request) ◆ If a ranking URL is renamed, what did we do? ◆ Manually change everything
20. The Heresy of No Redirects • Get a list, update and change urls • We use Sanity + GROQ to query content
21. The Heresy of No Redirects
22. The $10 Million Line of Code ➔ One Robots.txt Change ◆ Every modal = unique URL disaster ◆ Blocked /sports/:sport/:category/all & /sports/:sport/:category/:tournament/all patterns ◆ Tripled indexed pages: 200K → 600K
23. The $10 Million Line of Code
24. Sitemap "Myths" That Work 170 Sitemaps Using "Useless" Features ◆ Priority attribute: "Ignored" Drives our indexing ◆ Changefreq: "Doesn't work" 99% fixture indexing ◆ Result: 98-99% indexing on pages that matter
25. Sitemap "Myths" That Work • Google is trained on page behaviour • Pages indexed within hours of creation
26. unavailable_after > noindex ➔ One Robots.txt Change ◆ noindex: Requires re-crawl (wastes budget) ◆ unavailable_after: Sets expiration date ◆ Perfect for events (4-hour lifespan)
27. Entity-Based Ranking • No target keyword in title, h1,h2 on page • Only a small, hidden reference on page
28. Bring Something New
29. What We Figured Out (Then Found the Patent) ➔ Discovering Information Gain ◆ Casino operators bad at SEO ◆ They don't communicate product understanding ◆ We emphasise unique features in first paragraphs
30. What We Figured Out (Then Found the Patent) • Communicate industry knowledge • Standing out with Information Gain
31. Our Unique Content Strategy ➔ Can't Copy What Doesn't Exist ◆ VIP program details (exclusive) ◆ Proprietary betting features ◆ Original game mechanics ◆ One unique paragraph > Perfect semantic optimisation
32. Manual Content as Infrastructure • Every link intentional and contextual • Quality guaranteed through process
33. EliteChrysler.com Case Study
34. EliteChrysler.com Case Study • Canadian Chrysler dealer goes defunct • SEO acquires domain, converts to casino
35. The Invisible 50% ➔ Keywords Tools Can't See ◆ 50% of sports traffic from fixtures ◆ UFC event: 4-hour lifespan, 10K searches ◆ Indonesian 3rd league Match: 700 clicks ◆ Position 5 gets position 1 CTR (25-30%)
36. The Invisible 50% ➔ Keywords Tools Can't See ◆ 50% of sports traffic from fixtures ◆ UFC event: 4-hour lifespan, 10K searches ◆ Indonesian 3rd league Match: 700 clicks ◆ Position 5 gets position 1 CTR (25-30%)
37. Picture in Your Mind Ancient Rome
38. Almost All of Rome Was Wood & Peasants ➔ Rome was for the people ◆ We remember marble ◆ 90% was wooden buildings ◆ SEO obsesses over marble ◆ Rankings happen in the slums
39. ➔ What Actually Matters ◆ No pogo-sticking (users wait for us) ◆ Session duration > speed scores ◆ Brand strength = patience Real Ranking Factors
40. Everything Else Is Noise Content quality & relevance Link quality & quantity
41. ➔ Our Operating Philosophy ◆ Treat Googlebot like your best customer ◆ Clear paths, rich context ◆ Not gaming, serving Treat the Robot as VIP User
42. Check Your Cave WEIRD Surface World (12%)
43. Test What Really Moves the Needle Limitations Become Opportunities Check Your Cave Deep Cave (88%)
44. ➔ Limitations Force Evolution ◆ Can't redirect? Perfect internal linking ◆ Can't write freely? Information gain ◆ Can't load fast? Build brand trust Wisdom From Blind Salamanders
45. Stop Studying WEIRD Websites Evolution is built on more than a 12% sample size Salamander know that sometimes you need to lose your eyes to see
46. Dominating the World's Most Competitive Keywords (While Breaking Every SEO Rule) Peter Macinkovic SEO Lead Easygo Gaming Search Marketing Conference - November 2025 Questions & Answers