Rap Genius is Back on Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#11

Post by sillysaurus2 » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:11 PM UTC

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

They're back on Google, but keep in mind that they're seemingly not in a great position. Googling "justin beiber lyrics" doesn't show Rapgenius. Neither does "lady gaga lyrics" or "tupac lyrics". In all three cases, azlyrics.com has the top spot.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#12

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:15 PM UTC

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

They're back on Google, but keep in mind that they're seemingly not in a great position. Googling "justin beiber lyrics" doesn't show Rapgenius. Neither does "lady gaga lyrics" or "tupac lyrics". In all three cases, azlyrics.com has the top spot.

[deleted]

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#13

Post by rdl » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:15 PM UTC

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

You have the causality wrong. Rap Genius has Andreessen Horowitz because Rap Genius is special.

In this case, the user experience for a Google user is worse when Rap Genius is removed. Google has some incentive to be more active in fixing the problem there, especially since Rap Genius was cooperative, technically competent, and aside from their "rapper swag persona", genuinely nice guys.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#14

Post by walshemj » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:16 PM UTC

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

Having worked for large ftse100 publishers who had sites penalized in algo updates its stinks that such an avowedly black hat site gets of with a slap on the wrist.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#15

Post by uladzislau » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:21 PM UTC

Probably the story is missing the help of a highly skilled SEO consultant/company but it's impressive anyway. To get it done so quickly they had to work 24/7. Kudos!

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#16

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:24 PM UTC

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

[deleted]

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#17

Post by tinco » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:24 PM UTC

jarnix wrote: post #9

This post is complete bullshit. Of course they have relations. Maybe they cleaned their backlinks, but still I cannot believe how they got back so fast in SERP. Anyway, Franz Kafka would die again if he saw his text on this site ( http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Franz-kafka-a-dream-lyrics ), so let's just forget about this site and don't use it.

Don't be so spiteful. It might very well be that they have relations, don't make it sound like that's a bad thing. Besides that they also seem to just have cleaned up their act very thoroughly.

And about Franz Kafka, I think he'd turn in his grave if he heard about how petty people like yourself criticize a website that tries to make literary criticism of his work digestible and enjoyable for the masses.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#18

Post by MattBearman » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:26 PM UTC

LukeB_UK wrote: post #4

They have the word 'lyrics' at the end of the slug for that post and a number of others which don't have any relevance to lyrics. Surely that's still bad SEO practice?

Well spotted, it looks like all of their news article URLs end in '-lyrics', even those when it's not even slightly relevant eg: http://news.rapgenius.com/Snapchat-find-friends-abuse-lyrics

More shady SEO practices from Rap Genius, disappointed but not surprised.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#19

Post by bushido » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:27 PM UTC

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

They're back on Google, but keep in mind that they're seemingly not in a great position. Googling "justin beiber lyrics" doesn't show Rapgenius. Neither does "lady gaga lyrics" or "tupac lyrics". In all three cases, azlyrics.com has the top spot.

Edit: the reply is to the now reacted comment:

   > They're a startup, and this was a problem which was either going to kill them or be surmounted quickly. Naturally, they surmounted it quickly.

   Google laid out a clear plan of action for them. Is it hard to believe they finished it quickly?

Yeah, most of the other sites I refer to were also start-ups by almost any definition.

They did not quite finish their action plan. They got away on reasonable doubt.

This is the first time I am seeing this defense considered by Google.

I willing to bet any other non-vc funded bootstrapped start-up would never be afforded this consideration by Google.

This rant is not a judgement on Rap Genius, I am actually glad they maneuvered around this.

I am judging Google.

They have killed other start-ups for reasons such as other sites farming and duplication their content more vehemently. Reasonable doubt has never been considered for anybody else and most likely will never be hence forth.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#20

Post by pstack » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 2:28 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #13

bushido wrote: post #8

This is great for Rap Genius. But this truly saddens me as well. I cannot for the life of me understand how they were able to fix ten-of-thousands of backlinks and other shady practices and get back in the good graces of Google so darn quickly. Frankly I do not know a single other legitimate(+with good traffic) site who was able to get back in the good graces of Google after algorithm updates without spending many ma…

You have the causality wrong. Rap Genius has Andreessen Horowitz because Rap Genius is special. In this case, the user experience for a Google user is worse when Rap Genius is removed. Google has some incentive to be more active in fixing the problem there, especially since Rap Genius was cooperative, technically competent, and aside from their "rapper swag persona", genuinely nice guys.

Can someone clarify for me, again, what is so special about Rap Genius? It's just a bunch of stupid rap lyrics. So what? In fact, how are they not being sued for copyright by the owners of all the lyrics they're posting, anyway?

I run across Rap Genius now and then and have always considered it to be spam, just like yahoo answers, ehow, and mahalo pages.