Don't mess with Google... vol. RapGenius

[dabottom305]

Traffic to a site called Rap Genius remains low after it was nuked by Google for unannounced violations last week.

(Some thoughts on this below the chart...)

Google is unrelenting in its punishment of Rap genius, the crazy/brilliant song lyrics encyclopedia site. The chart above from Quantcast shows how its traffic has been decimated in the last few days.
Last month, Google caught Rap Genius seeding other web pages with links to its site — a no-no in the search engine business. Google only wants to see natural "organic" links from sites pointing their users to useful content.

So Google has dinged Rap Genius from its search results pages. The punishment does not just extend to RapGenius.com. It covers the site's internal pages for individual songs and bands, too, according to SEO Land. It is almost impossible to find Rap Genius on Google now. In fact, you have to click to the sixth Google results page before you get anywhere near a Rap Genius page — and even then it's for Rap Genius Poland:

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/goog...punishment-of-rap-genius-2014-1#ixzz2pMWQ181R

 

[antidope]

People reach on that site like no other, but I cant lie, it was a great idea.

 

[truballa101]

Damn Google, you scary.

Spoiler

Bing > Google

 

[Mark Antony]

Why though?

 

[superantigen]

The fact that google can do this is really scary.






...

 

[rare]

Why though?

They were cheating in their page views or something like that, Google found out, and didn't take to kindly. They tried to jump ahead in Google page searches. I found out a couple days ago when I would googl rapgenius and the website didnt pop up, instead the story came up. I can't believe the website took that big of a blow though.

 

[timbo109]

I do all my Google searches on Bing now in protest

 

[dabottom305]

Why though?

Google discovered that the controversial, privately financed domain had engaged in a link-exchange scheme meant to artificially boost its rankings in searches related to the new Justin Bieber record. Google struck back by burying all pages on the Rap Genius domain, including its homepage, far deeper than any reasonable user would bother dredging. Try to Google the lyrics to Drake's "Trophies" and you won't come across an RG link until at least page five, which in today's competitive online landscape might as well be page five thousand.

The fact that google can do this is really scary.






...

Word. We rely on them so heavily. Can't remember the last time I used Yahoo to search for anything.

 

[hrtjccc]

lol maybe a bit reaching here, but isn't this just like controlling what you can and cannot find on Internet?

back in middle school i was in this class

the teacher searched Tiananmen Square in Google China, it only yields result such as tourism info and ceremonies

then she searched Google US and all she got was the 1989 massacre.

This was back when Google still had a Chinese site

they left China because they can't mess with the censorship

imagine Google starts its own censorship...

 

[Bert.]

rap genius is the best tho

i dont understand what they were doing but that sucks

 

[rare]

rap genius is the best tho

i dont understand what they were doing but that sucks

It's run by a couple of Harvard grads (or Stanford?) that tried to outsmart google, they also made some controversial opinions toward the creator of Snapchat after the owner declined I think 3 billion from Facebook.

 

[celticspride34]

This isn't censorship, it'd business... RG
engaged in shady practices and used Google as a medium... I don't blame them one bit...

 

[Jordan8]

This isn't censorship, it'd business... RG
engaged in shady practices and used Google as a medium... I don't blame them one bit...

Word dudes just have to type it into the browser now

But I always found it funny how they came out of nowhere and dominated SEO. Suprise it took google so long to figure it out.

Its also funny that they werent using advertising on the site so they probably was building it up to sell it soon.

Too late now.

 

[crazy ebw]

 

[oidreez]

rap genius is the best tho

i dont understand what they were doing but that sucks

It's run by a couple of Harvard grads (or Stanford?) that tried to outsmart google, they also made some controversial opinions toward the creator of Snapchat after the owner declined I think 3 billion from Facebook.

Yale

 

[coolgraymemo]

That's why I use askjeeves.

 

[rare]

rap genius is the best tho

i dont understand what they were doing but that sucks

It's run by a couple of Harvard grads (or Stanford?) that tried to outsmart google, they also made some controversial opinions toward the creator of Snapchat after the owner declined I think 3 billion from Facebook.

Yale

Thanks for the correction, I knew it was one of those top schools.

 

[solefood229]

I knew something was up, I went from barely seeing RG links to every time I googled a song title it was the first thing to pop up

 

[dabottom305]

Rap Genius is Back on Google

http://news.rapgenius.com/Rap-genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-google-lyrics

 

[solexsup]

I was actually tryna get my rap on the other day and couldn't get rap genius to pop up on google. Had to manually type it in

 

[nom de guerre]

It's back up

this article makes too much sense tho http://www.businessinsider.com/rap-genius-apology-and-snapchat-2014-1

 

[rico x hood]

Seriously? This is what journalism is coming to? Writing about why people should apologize? Are we in Kindergarten? This is the real world and people don't publicly apologize unless they have to. So unless millions of snapchat users are boycotting because they're hurt by not getting an apology then I see no reason for one to be issued. Admitting to wrong doing can sometimes be just as bad or worse than actual wrong doing.

 

[water]

The fact that google can do this is really scary.






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