This is a review pages audit I did as part of my additional role as "Review Queen" at Gentoo.
Technical Sheet
What is it? A comparison between a [Site] sportsbook review and the same review on competitor websites, based on a few technical criteria:
- Page size
- No. of content outlinks
- No. of aff links
- No. of aff links to same operator
- Grammar errors
- Title
- Over pixel limit (yes/no)
- H1
- Operator logo alt
- Last updated
- Nofollow outlinks
- Images not webp
- Images missing alt text
- Schema comments
- Author comments
- Heading structure comments
- KW in H2s
- Word count
- Readability score
- Harcoded modules comments
How was it done? Selected one sportsbook review on [Site] and ran a detailed crawl on the selected URL only. Then repeated the process for competitor reviews, gathered the data in a sheet and did an analysis manually.
Repetitive FAQs
What is it? A sheet highlighting FAQs that are similar to H2s at the same URL.
How was it done? Crawled the sportsbook reviews with Screaming frog to extract H2s and FAQs, then imported them in a Google sheet. Each FAQ was assigned a semantic token. The token was then searched for within the H2s for the same URL, using a function. Details of the process:
- Set up SF crawl to include the /sportsbook/ path only
- Set up custom extraction for H2s → CSSPath - h2
- Set up custom extraction for FAQs → CSSPath - .question h3
- Exported the custom extraction results and imported them to Google Sheets
- Separated the FAQs and the H2s in different tabs
- Manually assigned a semantic token for each FAQ, or in other words, the core topic of each FAQ
- Used a formula to search for the token in the corresponding range of H2s: =IF(SUM(ARRAYFORMULA(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH([cell with token],[range of H2s])))) > 0, "Exists", "Does Not Exist")
- If the result was "Exists", checked manually and highlighted the cell with the FAQ if it was indeed repetitive.
How to write FAQs
Good practices:
- Gain inspiration from operators' help & FAQ pages. Example: https://help.draftkings.com/hc/en-us/categories/4405505460243-Sportsbook
- Go to Ahrefs → Keyword Explorer → Matching terms → Questions. Look for questions that aren't covered by a heading in your review.
- Go to AlsoAsked and search for the operator name. Look for questions that aren't covered by a heading in your review.
Not recommended:
- To repeat the topic of a heading
- To have the same question but with different wording multiple times
Exaggerated Pros
What is it? A sheet highlighting pros that sound salesy, exaggerated, inaccurate, or vague.
How was it done? Crawled the sportsbook reviews with Screaming frog to extract the pros of the reviews. Imported them into Google sheets and used a conditional formatting formula to highlight values with superlatives. Then went through them manually and gave examples of how some of them can be changes. Details of the process:
- Set up SF crawl to include the /sportsbooks/ path only
- Set up a SF custom extraction for the pros → CSSPath - .pros-item .font-semibold
- Extracted the results and import into a Google Sheet
- Set up conditional formatting with a custom formula to include some common superlatives
- Manually checked the highlighted values and provided some examples of how the text can be rewritten
How to write Pros
- Avoid superlatives. "Highly interactive in-play betting" instead of "Great live betting platform".
- Share quantitative measurements when possible. "[x number] of sports to bet on" instead of "Strong selection of sports to bet on".
- Demonstrate expertise, share insightful analysis. Example: 2x lower wagering requirements than the average.
- Cover comparable things to consider. E.g "Sleek design" or "Innovative platform" are a bit vague and hard to compare.
- Be specific. For example, what does "Smooth banking experience" mean - are the withdrawal times quick, is the process short and intuitive?
- Avoid controversial statements. A good example is anything related to customer service.
Misplaced or Irrelevant Outlinks
What is it? A sheet with outlinks from some of the sportsbook reviews that are either misleading, misplaced, irrelevant, or have an anchor that is too long.
How was it done? Crawled the sportsbook reviews with Screaming frog and extracted all outlinks. Filtered the sheet so we can have only the dofollow links in the content of the review.
Common Issues
The anchor text has different intent
There are instances where the anchor suggests one thing, but the target page is actually about something else.
The anchor text is too long
A long anchor can be confusing for both the search engine and the user. It could also be too unappealing to click on.
The context of the surrounding text is different
Sometimes a link is inserted somewhere even though the surrounding text doesn't have anything to do with the linked page.
The anchor text is non-descriptive
The anchor text might be just too short or vague to give the search engine and the user a good idea of what the target page is about.
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