No help on the way for VBet Netherlands, unsearchable on Google for seven months

Key points:

– Bet Construct-owned VBet Netherlands was delisted from Google’s organic search function on 18 December 2024

– Since reporting the issue to Google and Dutch reporting portal, Meld Vals Spel, it has received next to no assistance

Since December 2024, licensed operator VBet has been unfindable through organic Google search in the Netherlands. 

In place of the Dutch version of the site, the search engine is ranking unlicensed imitation alternatives.

Months of updates, SEO wrangling and reconfigurations later, Bet Construct-owned VBet Netherlands is still in the wilderness; despite reporting the problem to Google and VNLOK-operated portal Meld Vals Spel, it has received next to no support. 

Meld Vals Spel was set up to give the legal gambling industry a place to report illegal sites, increasing understanding of the black market and combatting it more effectively. 

VBet reported the illegal sites using its name to the portal on 5 May 2025 – it received one automated response on the same day and nothing since then from Meld Vals Spel or Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Dutch Gambling Authority, that it can pass reports onto for further action.

Ed Quigley, Regional Director at VBet, asked Gambling Insider: “What is the point of a portal if nothing’s going to be done with it?” 

Good to know: Meld Vals Spel was set up by Dutch trade associations VNLOK and NOGA in 2024 after both bodies had called for increased monitoring of black market gambling – VNLOK and NOGA have since announced that they are merging to unite industry voices

Traffic that ought to have been funnelled onto the operator’s site has been going unconverted, costing the company financially and dearly in terms of consumer trust. 

“It’s pretty disastrous,” says Quigley of the commercial and reputational hit. 

The operator has been trying to seek assistance from Google, though the only point of contact is its account manager for paid search.

Google claims it has policies in place to prevent the promotion of illegal offerings, though it appears any attempts to stop the VBet imitation sites have been unsuccessful. 

Working with Google is a necessity for most online gambling operators and, so far, VBet has refrained from taking the problem directly up with the KSA, though this, Quigley says, could be the next step. 

The company has people working on the SEO of the website internally, and has sought external help to optimise the site and make it searchable once again.

The SEO Team Lead from SoftConstruct, David Mkrtchyan, has been working to resolve the issue. He suggested that, while negative SEO could be the problem, it may also be that Google’s algorithms have simply made an error, mistakenly penalising the legitimate site over suspicions that it was operating nefariously while leaving the truly illegitimate platforms untouched. 

With regards to these Google penalties, which can be algorithmic or manually executed, there are public guidelines on how to recover, though despite following all the requisite steps, VBet has not been relisted.

Indeed, according to Quigley, Google’s advice has amounted to little more than directing VBet to fill out forms and a suggestion to increase pay-per-click spend.

After all these months, it has apparently not been possible to escalate the issue within Google and open communications with the teams responsible for organic search. 

“We can’t speak to whoever you would need to speak to, which obviously is very strange.” says Quigley. 

Multiple tickets have been logged by VBet’s Google account manager, he tells us, but this has yielded no timelines, no direct communications from organic search teams and no admission of any responsibility. 

“Google have essentially a monopoly on the market, so it’s hard to tell if they actually care, which I don’t think they do.” 

Google and Meld Vals Spel have been contacted by Gambling Insider for comment.