Link Building That Scaled a Sports Media Platform With an Audience of Over 50 Million

Introduction

The client is an owner of an international sports media platform featuring daily news, match reviews, analytics, and predictions. The project operates in Europe, the United States, and South America and is available in six languages.

Their request was clear: strengthen the brand’s presence in search results, boost domain authority, and most importantly, improve rankings for betting and casino-related pages.

The main complexity was high competition and a large number of low-quality donors in the niche, where quality matters significantly more than quantity.

Goals

• Develop a link-building strategy targeting English-speaking and European audiences.
• Strengthen commercial pages and increase their visibility for betting-related queries.
• Improve domain authority and indexing of priority website sections.
• Ensure consistent organic growth without risking penalties.

What We Did

We started from the analysis of the backlink profiles of top competitors in the sports media niche. The priority was identifying which link formats provide measurable results and which donor platforms are safe for commercial content.

Based on the results of the analysis, we built a detailed link strategy and phased implementation plan.

To maintain a natural backlink profile, we prepared separate donor pools for each language version of the project. At the early stage, we focused on crowd links and submissions to distribute the link mass evenly. Then we strengthened the strategy with article placements and mini PBN networks to boost the most important pages.

Total links placed during the campaign:

• Crowd links: 170
• Articles: 55
• Submissions: 343
• Mini PBN: 962
• Homepage links: 5

We thoroughly check all links manually and create an anchor list by using a natural ratio of branded and commercial anchors.

All the progress was monitored in Ahrefs. Indexing, link appearance, and DR growth were reviewed weekly. The link plan was adjusted based on regional trends. For example, article links performed best across Europe, while crowd platforms worked more effectively in South America due to user engagement.

Results

After 6 months, the project demonstrated consistent and measurable growth.

Organic traffic increased from 13,506,051 to 17,224,079 – a gain of 27.5%, equal to almost +3.7M visits.

Keyword visibility increased from 1,134,841 to 1,381,490 – growth of 21.7%.

In simplified terms

 📈 traffic grew 1.27×

 📈 visibility grew 1.22×

The Phoenix Project team understand that such results are especially valuable in niches where any mistake in link-building strategy can trigger ranking drops.

The site now consistently ranks in the top positions across English-speaking and European regions (USA, South America, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Argentina). Pages related to betting* began receiving stable organic traffic and external referral clicks.

*Betting refers to placing wagers on sports events or other activities to win money. It’s one of the main monetization models for sports media websites.

Conclusion

Phoenix Project strengthened the position of a global sports media platform through a precise link-building strategy and balanced distribution of link equity.

For the client, this resulted in:

• Stable traffic
• Stronger brand authority
• Confident positioning in organic search

If you want backlinks to work safely and predictably for your business, contact us.

We’ll build a strategy tailored to your niche and goals.