XLMedia Announces Plans to Recover Casino Vertical

Global digital performance publisher XLMedia has provided an update for the year ended 31 December 2020.

For the Full Year 2020, XLMedia expects to deliver revenue of approximately $54.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $11.5 million (excluding transformation costs and share-based payments).

As detailed in the first half results in September, the Company is pursuing a multi-track approach to recovering the Casino vertical, where a number of sites were penalised by Google early in 2020. This process is being carried out in conjunction with a fundamental rationalisation of the asset portfolio, significantly reducing the overall number of sites and upgrading the quality of those remaining, with a concentration on highly-engaging content and enhanced functionality to drive increased traffic and build consumer loyalty.

The approach to recovering the Casino vertical is an orderly combination of, i) submitting to Google for reconsideration certain sites which have been rebuilt in-house or in conjunction with a partner, ii) developing some entirely new sites, where this is the better strategic option, iii) de-indexing sites which are immaterial and may have a negative impact on the authority of the premium websites, and iv) disposing of sites which no longer fit with the direction of the business.

“We have now completed the core development work on all the rebuilt sites we will take forward and have commenced the submission process to Google for reconsideration. To date, we have been successful in having the penalty removed for three of the ten sites we wish to recover, Casino.pt, Casino.gr and CasinoKiwi.co.nz. Learnings from both successes and initial rejections are being applied to the ongoing refinement of the remaining sites and we will resubmit those sites in due course. We will provide a further update on the Casino recovery process with the Financial Results for the Year Ended 31 December 2020, currently expected on 13 April 2021,” XLMedia said.