Does this not prove the incentive to win at SEO at all costs?
Has google disclosed other sites penalized for the same behavior?
Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
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Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#22Which is really a shame, because RapGenius is a better lyrics site than all the rest by leaps and bounds. Google is acting like a cartel here and it's absolutely ridiculous. I hope they can beat this thing.
They're using this as a punitive measure to prevent SEO abuse from happening in the future. I don't see much of a problem with it. Google is doing everyone a favor here - including helping out other search engines.
Users who care enough can just go directly to the site.
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#23Which is really a shame, because RapGenius is a better lyrics site than all the rest by leaps and bounds. Google is acting like a cartel here and it's absolutely ridiculous. I hope they can beat this thing.
I greatly prefer AZLyrics - they give me the lyrics on a page with just the lyrics, that's all I want nearly 100% of the time.
It's not even a contest: http://i.imgur.com/H1QixcN.png
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#24There really needs to be some checks and balances here. Perhaps an opensource search engine? I think an entity like Google having so much control over which businesses die or survive is a little ridiculous.
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#25Which is really a shame, because RapGenius is a better lyrics site than all the rest by leaps and bounds. Google is acting like a cartel here and it's absolutely ridiculous. I hope they can beat this thing.
Is it though? Though I may be making an assumption that a substantial amount of traffic is retention, if people aren't coming back does that mean that RapGenius really didn't offer that much over other lyrics sites?
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#26ironically google trends shows a massive increase in interest http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=rapgenius.com
Is the search interest attributed to people wanting to see how low rap genius is ranked now on google, or people who actually want to visit the rap genius site? I suspect it is the former.
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#27I'm not sure if it's right or wrong what Google did, but it was certainly a shit business decision. It's Google's job to be a proper search tool for anyone to get the best possible results when searching something as simple as "rapgenius". If I search "rapgenius" and don't get the hugely popular website http://rapgenius.com as the first result, then that's bad service on Google's end.
+1. Even if RapGenius did cheat, they are still the best solution for Google's customers (i.e. those sheep whose data can be mined and sold).
So I don't get why Google essentially fucks up with their customers.
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#28Which is really a shame, because RapGenius is a better lyrics site than all the rest by leaps and bounds. Google is acting like a cartel here and it's absolutely ridiculous. I hope they can beat this thing.
Google is a corporation. If you want to do business with them, you follow their rules, or face the consequences. RG didn't follow those rules.
How is this ridiculous?
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#29Which is really a shame, because RapGenius is a better lyrics site than all the rest by leaps and bounds. Google is acting like a cartel here and it's absolutely ridiculous. I hope they can beat this thing.
If you were Google, knowing that someone is gaming the system, what would you have done differently?
Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%
#30Hmm... "This site reaches over 24 million monthly people, of which 12 million (48%) are in the U.S.The typical visitor watches Nickelodeon, visits pbskids.org, and listens to National Public Radio."
All I can glean from that is that the typical visitor to RapGenius can't be bothered to set up a separate user account for his/her children. This brings up an important point: hardly anyone knows how to configure or troubleshoot their computer. This is by far a more important point than some arbitrary "learn to code" movement that doesn't teach CS, and does NOT teach programming – it's like giving somebody a hammer a…
I'm confused. Do you think RapGenius visitors are children or adults?