Clickout-Linked Sites Cut Staff After Reported Google Penalties

The latest findings came in an October 26 investigation by Press Gazette. The publisher linked the cuts to falling search visibility at sites used to promote online casinos. Google has not publicly confirmed the reported penalties against these sites.

Gambling Insider Staff Cuts Follow September Action

Gambling Insider employees described a reduced newsroom after the site reportedly received a Google manual penalty in September. At Esports Insider, staff and freelance writers have also disappeared from the editorial roster in recent weeks. At least five names were replaced by a shared "ESI Editorial Team" byline, Press Gazette found.

Clickout Media told the publication it did not own Esports Insider. Several employees, however, said the company ran the site. Clickout, which has operated under the Finixio name, has acquired news and gaming properties as part of a search-led casino affiliate business.

There was an earlier warning. In March, Esports Insider and Videogamer appeared to disappear from Google results, with Esports Insider reportedly missing even from searches for its own name. The latest reported action against Gambling Insider came months later.

Former Writer’s Name Used on 28 Casino Articles

Ben Touati lost access to Esports Insider on March 9 and left the company two weeks later. Yet 28 casino articles on the site’s German-language pages carried his name, with update dates stretching from May 15 to July 14.

Touati denied writing or editing the material. He had covered esports for the publication, not casino rankings or payment methods.

In an October 28 spot check, 15M found that three German-language Esports Insider casino guides displayed 404 error pages at their previously indexed URLs. The pages covered live casinos, 100% casino bonuses and lesser-known casinos. The reason remains unclear.

One of three Esports Insider casino guides returned a 404 error during 15M’s October 28 check

Press Gazette also ran articles published under the "ESI Editorial Team" byline through the Pangram AI detector. The tool classified them as AI-generated.

Three More Gambling Sites Named in Penalty Reports

CasinoBeats, Gaming America and Dutch-language PlaySense.nl were also named as possible recipients of Google manual actions. The October investigation did not establish how much search traffic each site had lost.

Meanwhile, Clickout’s portfolio may still be growing. Former employees estimated that the company had acquired up to 300 websites. Press Gazette also reported apparent purchases of gaming-related domains, including Gamereactor.se, after the penalties. The ownership claims and network size remain unverified.

The same website could face different Google rankings in London and Berlin. Since August 30, site reputation abuse penalties have directly affected searches outside the European Economic Area, but not within it. Google can still assess the affected section separately for EEA users. None of the reported Clickout cases has been publicly tied to that specific violation.

For affiliates assessing publisher placements, search visibility should be checked for the casino section, not just the domain.