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"Don't be evil" Rapgenius got punished for playing the game better than anyone else. Who's to say this couldn't happen to highly relevant sources of information? Wikipedia? Underground sites? This is the equivalent of censorship.
How is penalizing them for engaging in shady SEO tactics considered censorship?
Ok, how can Rap Genius recover from this? They're one of the best (and least shady) lyrics sites on the net. They acted immorally, yes, but is justifiable to summarily execute their company? Google has a domineering position in the market, and it's a bit ironic that people were quick to call for Microsoft to be split into multiple companies about a decade ago, yet nobody bats an eye when Google exercises their power.…
Not only is this bad for RapGenius, it's bad for Google, and most importantly bad for Google's users. Yes, RapGenius screwed up, and they've paid the price. But they've publicly recognized what they did and apologized. Google really should reinstate their ranking, because people searching for lyrics right now are being given the huge disservice of using the ultra-spammy lyrics sites from days of yore.
Not only is this bad for RapGenius, it's bad for Google, and most importantly bad for Google's users. Yes, RapGenius screwed up, and they've paid the price. But they've publicly recognized what they did and apologized. Google really should reinstate their ranking, because people searching for lyrics right now are being given the huge disservice of using the ultra-spammy lyrics sites from days of yore.
A short penalty of a few days or weeks isn't much of a deterrent. It may suck for people searching lyrics now, but making the page rank penalty effectively toothless would suck for everyone.
Hypothetical question: if we ("we" being nebulous) were to unveil that every other major lyrics site (azlyrics, metrolyrics, stlyrics, lyricsfreak, lyrics365, etc. etc.) uses the same SEO tactics, would they receive the same attention and punishment?
First result for "jay-z holy grail lyrics" Google: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jayz/holygrail.html Bing: http://rapgenius.com/Jay-z-holy-grail-lyrics
The Bing result is better (though both are valid).
I would suspect that most sites pulling these sort of SEO scams are going to have lousy content, so the rule makes sense, but perhaps there should be some sort of human element to it as well? That's not scalable, though, so I'm not really sure what the best answer for Google is on this one.
Ok, how can Rap Genius recover from this? They're one of the best (and least shady) lyrics sites on the net. They acted immorally, yes, but is justifiable to summarily execute their company? Google has a domineering position in the market, and it's a bit ironic that people were quick to call for Microsoft to be split into multiple companies about a decade ago, yet nobody bats an eye when Google exercises their power.…
There is no execution going on. They knowingly engaged in blackhat SEO. Now they are paying the rather well-known penalty. They need to wait it out while that penalty is active (likely slimming down their burn rate) and focus on gaining customers through other avenues. Or kill their brand and reboot as a different one with a different URL on a different IP.
Hypothetical question: if we ("we" being nebulous) were to unveil that every other major lyrics site (azlyrics, metrolyrics, stlyrics, lyricsfreak, lyrics365, etc. etc.) uses the same SEO tactics, would they receive the same attention and punishment?
Ok, how can Rap Genius recover from this? They're one of the best (and least shady) lyrics sites on the net. They acted immorally, yes, but is justifiable to summarily execute their company? Google has a domineering position in the market, and it's a bit ironic that people were quick to call for Microsoft to be split into multiple companies about a decade ago, yet nobody bats an eye when Google exercises their power.…