Poker Websites - Revealing How To Get The Best....

Poker websites can be classified into 3 main types - the websites of the poker rooms themselves, established standalone, information type sites, and new, recently launched standalone sites. You could theoretically classify poker blogs as a fourth type, but for the purposes of this article I'm going to include them in the 3 main types.

The term 'poker websites' is a broad one, and within each classification there are a number of sub-types to cover. So, it's a good idea to break them down into separate groups and cover one by one. This article will help you understand why the different types of poker websites exist, how they work, and with that knowledge how you can use them to best effect.

1. The Poker Rooms

There's a lot of money to be made in online poker. The poker rooms exist to make a profit, purely and simply, just the same as pretty much every business. They aim do this by providing an excellent experience for their players, with the best of them providing clean, high quality poker software, a wide variation of game types and cash levels, good value bonuses, and interesting promotions.

I say they exist to make money, and clearly if they didn't they'd go out of business. So you can see a great testament to poker's popularity here, with dozens if not hundreds of online poker rooms operating consistently, some for many years.

Finding the best among them is not difficult, with the well know names of Pokerstars, 888 Pacific Poker, and PartyPoker immediately springing to mind..but there are a dozen other poker rooms who's names might not be so familiar to a poker beginner and which do offer strong gaming experiences. The more experienced among this sites' readers will know who they are - but if you're in any doubt the next classification will cover the websites that will clear that up for you......

2. Standalone/Information Type Poker Websites

These can be broken down into 2 types - pure information websites and advertising sites. There's a major difference in their intent, but both offer seriously good information in many cases.

I call these standalone sites in the sense that they're not generally run by poker rooms, but by independent poker webmasters (or teams of webmasters). This may not be totally true, because I believe that some independent sites have been taken over by poker rooms and then solely dedicated to advertising just that specific poker room, by taking advantage of the existing visitor base. At this point I don't know the names of any, but will attempt to find out and publish here.

Anyway, as I said there are two main types, and the big difference is in advertising. There are a handful of pure information type sites. Good examples would be Wikipedia, DMOZ, and Pagat (the last named does carry some subdued advertising for Poker Stars). Then there are hundreds of other sites which provide great information (in a lot of cases), and not so good information (in a lot of cases), which actually exist as businesses which make money. It's fair to say that the best among them are run by dedicated poker enthusiasts, and that shines through in the content they provide. Some make a lot of money, some make a reasonable return, and many make a small amount or nothing. Most are marketing a range of online poker rooms, occasionally focussed on one or two, often many more.

And how does this work? What are these poker websites trying to achieve?

The answer is they provide information to attract visitors (you), if the information is good the visitors stay on the site for more (and hopefully return regularly), and while they're on the site they will hopefully join a poker room via the advertising on that site.

When they do this, the visitor to a poker room is tracked or associated to the link that they arrived from, and the sending site gets paid for sending the new business. It's called affiliate marketing, and is in use throughout the internet, not just for poker. Big comanies use this as a way of advertising on the internet, and marketing to a user base which they might never get access to on their own.

My site is no different, though I have tried to keep advertising subdued - but I will make some money if you register either with PokerStrategy.com (via my links at the top of the pages) to learn how to play poker successfully, or directly with any of the poker rooms you can find on some dedicated pages.

That's a poker webmasters business. He or she provides information, you the visitor get the information you need, you sign up to play, the poker rooms get a new player, the webmaster gets paid, you get to play poker, and the poker room earns money. Everyone wins.

You can see from this that there's a lot of money circulating, and as in any walk of life this attracts more and more people looking for a share of it.

You might ask if there are any risks of you losing out because of this? The answer is not really. When you register with a new poker room through an affiliate site, you're not losing anything. It's as if you'd signed up with the poker room directly. In fact, some affiliate poker sites are powerful enough to negotiate special deals with the poker rooms where you'll get better bonuses and promotions than if you'd signed directly.

But 'shopping around' is a good phrase to remember here.

The only obvious way you could lose out is by following misleading information. Many poker websites use point scoring/rating systems to denote what they believe are the best poker rooms. There is a risk ( though I don't recall encountering this, and certainly not on any of the popular long standing sites) where some might be tempted to rate the rooms that get them the best return more highly than others. The reality is that in most cases the leading poker rooms are able to give the better affiliate deals to the poker webmasters anyway.. I don't believe you need ratings to tell you the best sites anyway, though they do have their value in certain circumstances.

New Poker Websites

The last type is the new poker website. Almost exclusively these are going to be business orientated, money making sites. Generally they're at a disadvantage, because they have to compete against long running, well known sites. Their age is a disadvantage, as is their level of content. But change is something that we all know is contant. With some good ideas, and a lot of effort and hard work, a new poker website can make it. Of course. the site you're on - PokerStrategyBonus.com - currently falls into this category. I hope you like it, because without you I have almost zero chance of making it a success.

I'm working hard on it.

I also thought it was a good idea to add a page dedicated to new poker websites. There's every reason to think that it could become a popular well-visited page. We might just find the great poker websites of the future covered on that page, and that would be something!