41–50 of 120 posts
"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.
It isn't the equivalent of censorship, it's rewarding the good behavior of the competition.
"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.
"This is the equivalent of censorship." How is penalizing them for engaging in shady SEO tactics considered censorship?
When I google "rapgenius eminem" they don't appear in the results. That's pretty close to censorship.
I'm not necessarily against it, but I don't disagree with the usage of the term.
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.
BS.
What's good for Google is showing people that if you engage in bad practices your shit will get nuked from orbit, even if your site is better than the competitors.
You'd better believe that companies are going to avoid blackhat SEO in the future after this, and that's absolutely in Google's interests.
Luckily their revenue has remained unchanged... $0. This could have been a financial disaster if Rap Genius was a real business, but you need to have revenue for that.
"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.
Highly relevant sources of information don't show up in the search results anyway.
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.…
It's possible they'll be bigger, what with all the free (though bad) press they've gotten.
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?
Or taking it one step further, use these tactics to promote a controversial institution or politician (without them knowing). Then "leak" it to Google, so they get punished. Then claim Google is censoring them. Finally enjoy the outrage :-)
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.
I applaud Google for this, and that's the first time I've applauded Google in a while!
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.…
Apparently they already anticipated something like this because several other companies were being manually penalized over the past year and half following an algorithm that seemed like: "Which big AdWords spenders cut down significantly on their budget? Are they getting it organically now? Let's cut that off."
Several of those companies are suing Google for violating EU regulations, so hopefully something will come out of that.
The first step will probably be that penalizations can be fought through the EU judicial system, but it will be a while before we get jurisprudence on that.
I don't know how this would work in the US legal system but, regardless of what the outcome would be in Rap Genius' case, it's probably time for similar jurisprudence to be established in the US.