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Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

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Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#141

Post by [deleted] »

devanti wrote: post #136
yoseph wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their ambition isn't limited to the song meanings / annotations market. They wouldn't have raised $15m on that. Look at how they're branching out. PoetryGenius, NewsGenius, etc. They want to annotate the world's information. That's a huge market and with RG's excellent execution so far (everyone has missteps - remember that), it warrants a $15m bet.

That could be their goal, but it's a lot easier said than done, especially in markets that haven't been executed before. For example, Rdio tried to do Vdio with video and look how that turned out. Off the top of my head, I can't even think of one company that expanded to different categories successfully. It's difficult and really rare.

[deleted]

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#142

Post by devanti »

yoseph wrote: post #139
devanti wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be their goal, but it's a lot easier said than done, especially in markets that haven't been executed before. For example, Rdio tried to do Vdio with video and look how that turned out. Off the top of my head, I can't even think of one company that expanded to different categories successfully. It's difficult and really rare.

Everything's easier said than done... I can. Here are three: Salesforce. Amazon. Google.

Those companies were making a lot of revenue in a huge market before they expanded. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#143

Post by josephcooney »

undoware wrote: post #134
hayksaakian wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I was a Microsoft marketing exec so I could take credit for this idea.

I'm sure some exec already has.

This is from the same team that brought us the 'scroogled' campaign? I doubt they know what Rap Genius is....

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#144

Post by bdcravens »

scrrr wrote: post #93

Impressive what one company can do to you if they decide you're not playing by their rules. (Not defending RG, I just think this is a good example of how much power Google has..)

That's our world. Everytime we trumpet the fact that they're a power that can stand up to the Apples and NSAs of the world, remember where that power and strength comes from. Not a bad thing, merely a double-edged sword.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#145

Post by leen »

001sky wrote: post #106
sejje wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you google for "rapgenius" the best result is unquestionably rapgenius.

No, when you have the website you don't need to "google" it.

> No, when you have the website you don't need to "google" it.

You have the company name, not necessarily the website. It could be .com, .net and probably reasonably well a few other ones.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#146

Post by ZoFreX »

jonknee wrote: post #62

An interesting side effect of this is the phenomenon of less sophisticated users who use Google as their address bar. If you run a decently well-known website you see this in your analytics reports (at least back when you could see Google search keywords)--repeat visitors coming to your site from Google after searching for your site by name. This is why "facebook" is the top Google search. Since you can't find RapGen…

This is a ridiculous practical weakness to the web we have created. At a technical level it is designed to be relatively decentralised and fault tolerant, but what we have built on top is anything but :(

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#147

Post by baldajan »

V-2 wrote: post #99
baldajan wrote: post #38

What I find shocking is a single company (Google) has the power to cause such a dramatic decrease of a website it deemed "unworthy". Sure, it can justify its actions by saying they broke the rules, but pressing the a "death button" for a website is not a solution. I feel as though Google needs to re-examine their core principles and determine how to better handle an issue like this. Otherwise, I suspect Google might…

> but pressing the a "death button" for a website is not a solution. What is a solution then? It seems like a good deterrent. It has to hurt. In Poland (where I'm from) they similarly punished Ceneo, Skąpiec, Nokaut (all most popular price comparator services) and even Tesco. See http://www.seoportal.pl/ceneo-skapiec-tesco-ukarane-przez-go... (Polish) or http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...…

The punishment should fit the crime, and I believe the punishment was far too excessive. In my opinion, I think a solution exists where when one searches for rap genius, rap genius results are on top, not on the 7th page.

I am not defending rap genius for what they did, but criticizing Google for their actions.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#148

Post by ZoFreX »

jawerty wrote: post #15

I'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.

I agree; I just shrugged and made a mental note to use Bing whenever I look for lyrics. I already use it for image searching and translation.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#149

Post by notatoad »

w1ntermute wrote: post #120
tptacek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By people who are not fans of Rap Genius, of which there are many. (I like the site, for what it's worth).

Why was it disliked (prior to this incident)?

I don't think the product itself is disliked, just the founders.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#150

Post by dokem »

aliakbarkhan wrote: post #119
ddw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself sophisticated and I still use Google for something like Rap Genius: "rap genius kendrick lamar swimming pools" would get me there quicker than any other way. It's incredible that now that search string sends me to other pages that link to RG's lyrics but not directly to theirs.

If you actually knew how to use Google this wouldn't be a problem. The `site:` filter is your friend.

You are coming off as incredibly pretentious. I was unaware that by typing in the search field and expecting relevant results I wasn't using Google correctly.
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