Traffic Cardinal
wrote April 10, 2026
Traffic Cardinal
wrote April 10, 2026
Nikolas Monti-Potsolakis has spent 18 years mastering SEO across iGaming, Crypto, and Fortune 500 giants like Estée Lauder and Vodafone. In this interview, he explains why PBNs and LLM manipulation still deliver breakthroughs, how to outrank competitors without chasing the same casino keywords, and what helps him work 14-hour days. Enjoy!
Personal
If you were starting from scratch today, would you get into iGaming SEO and affiliate marketing again? Why?
Profitable market for SEOs who know what they are doing, more challenging and at the same time, more room for testing SEO tactics.
How do you juggle working across multiple countries, managing a ton of clients, and family life? Do you have a go-to time management hack?
I rely on my family’s support, without them I would not be able to work 12-14 hours every day. On technology, my iCal, my phone and my computer are modern warriors weapons. And my team who I handpicked and trusted with the work. Which is something very rare nowadays, to find people you trust.
You work a lot with iGaming and Crypto. These niches often get criticized. How do you explain to your loved ones what you do, and have you ever faced any pushback or misunderstanding?
These are industries I believe wrongly criticised. And they are labelled by society as the “Sin City” Industries along with Adult. Because governments have not been able to regulate them 100%. But let me tell you what. Why do people criticise only these 3? Why is there no criticism of the Tobacco or Alcohol industry? They are ten times more addictive and can kill you. But they are regulated and taxed so no one bats an eye. So for us SEOs, we are here to do our job and not criticise an industry that contributes to the economy as much (if not more) as the aforementioned industries.
Give one piece of advice to a hypothetical colleague who wants to reach your level.
Learn on the job, don't be afraid to test things and find a mentor to guide you!
Business
Over 18 years, you've worked with Vodafone, Fortuna Entertainment, Estée Lauder. What do these very different niches have in common when it comes to SEO, and what's radically different?
Depending on the size of the company, there are similar challenges when comparing industries. So a large company such as Vodafone, Estee Lauder or Fortuna Entertainment, all face the same issue. Things are so slow to move that you are risking getting caught by the next Google Update!
You helped to boost a lot of brands. Name one unconventional move that delivered the biggest breakthrough.
LLM manipulation with Reddit and PBNs 🙂
In arbitrage, PBNs and doorways are popular. With your experience working with huge companies, can you build a long-term business on that, or is it a dead end?
There is one thing that was, is and will be relevant to SEO, no matter what Google says. Links! PBNs are still relevant as long as they are used carefully and with care to the site, and not built pointing to a site guns blazing without care.
Headless CMS, PWA — are these genuinely necessary technologies for gambling projects, or are they often just unnecessary expenses?
They are super important in terms of site speed and core web vitals as we want the best experience for the players. But, they can be catastrophic for SEO if not set up correctly and can cause the whole site to deindex. That is why we use tools like Prerender.io to make indexing more effective.
They said that the market is oversaturated. Everyone is writing casino rankings. How do you stand out from competitors today when classic reviews no longer work?
Stop focusing on the best casino sites only and try to focus on the cluster! Other keywords which are relevant and belong to the same cluster, can give you a boost and an opportunity to use internal linking by creating more content!
Is it realistic to promote a new gambling project from scratch today without investing in branding, using only white hat methods?
Depends if it's regulated or not, to be honest. If it's regulated, brand is the way along link building and PR, and citations from top local publishers to increase authority and mentions of the brand. On the unregulated side now that's where things are more interesting as black hat thrives!
Is AI content a lifesaver or a reputation risk? Can a fully auto-generated site become a leader in iGaming?
It can be only for a crash & burn short term strategy which is not relying so much on content but backlinks. Otherwise for long term sustainability I would say you still need at least 20% of the content to be generated by a human or at the very least to check it.
Share one case where you took over a dying project and helped it survive. What exactly did you do?
When I took over the Global SEO for Fortuna Entertainment Group I launched it to top 1 brand in CEE for Casino and top 2 for Sportsbook in rankings! It was a carefully designed strategy focused not only on generating content or links. But also building processes and checklists between internal teams and even countries.
What's the biggest SEO misconception crypto projects have? Why do so many blow their budgets on backlinks yet still fail to get organic traffic?
Either because they don’t do proper targeting or they rely heavily on links without proper content generation.
What's one process from big business you'd recommend an affiliate team of 5-10 people adopt to reduce risks?
Check, double check and triple check what you do! Proper QA can save a project especially in fast paced smaller environments where you might generate content faster than a big org.
Speakership
You have extensive speaking experience. Which audience is tougher: corporate directors at private events or affiliate experts at niche conferences like Island Conference? How does your delivery differ?
I believe it has to do with the knowledge, depth and understanding they each have on SEO. Apart from being a speaker, I am also a Business Coach for Business Owners and C-Levels that want to understand SEO better. And it's super important that they all see the value it can bring to the business and that SEO is not dead at all, but evolving!
If you were mentoring a speaker for a major SEO conference, what advice would you give them to avoid bombing?
Make sure you talk only about points you are sure of, not just because they are sexy or trending. And practice A LOT. It can really save you many awkward moments!
