As companies expand into markets such as India and Canada, SEO performance is increasingly constrained by legacy platforms, complex JavaScript frameworks and regulatory IP blocking.
The result is a highly competitive technical environment where organic visibility is difficult to defend and costly to recover.
These issues were examined on the latest episode of the SEO Boardroom, titled Technical SEO for international iGaming websites. Speaking with host Ivana Flynn, technical SEO specialist Mile Davchevski, Head of SEO at Rhino Entertainment described iGaming as the most competitive SEO sector she has worked in, driven by high commercial value and constant regulatory disruption.
Davchevski argued that basic technical hygiene, fast load times, crawlability and clean architecture, is no longer a differentiator. Instead, competitive advantage now comes from how operators handle rendering, international targeting and rapid domain changes under regulatory pressure.
JavaScript remains a major weakness for operators. Many rely on legacy stacks or single-page applications that use client-side rendering, creating gaps between user-facing content and what search engines index. This often forces teams to deploy pre-rendering or dynamic rendering solutions, increasing technical risk and maintenance overhead.
Affiliates, by contrast, typically operate on WordPress-based infrastructures with server-side rendering by default, making technical optimisation more straightforward.
International SEO introduces further challenges. Davchevski warned that targeting multiple English-speaking markets without strict hreflang (an HTML attribute used for international SEO to specify the language and geographical targeting of a webpage) implementation, correct HTML language attributes and consistent header structures can lead to ranking cannibalisation. In these cases, operators end up competing with their own domains rather than strengthening global visibility.
Regulated and semi-restricted markets such as India present the most severe risks. Frequent ISP-level blocking of gambling sites has pushed operators toward domain mirroring strategies.
Davchevski noted that successful teams maintain reserve domains and execute rapid 301 redirects using Google Search Console’s change-of-address process to preserve authority and traffic when blocks occur.
Brand defence is also becoming a technical priority. With competition and “parasite sites” increasing, operators are seeking to control as much branded search real estate as possible through satellite domains and owned social assets to ensure users can still find them during domain transitions.
On AI, Davchevski played down near-term disruption. While AI tools can support workflows, the legal and regulatory complexity of iGaming content limits their effectiveness. For now, she concluded, disciplined technical SEO remains the primary driver of international scale.
