Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rap Genius is Back on Google

news.rapgenius.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 203 posts

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#31

Post by tinco »

ronaldx wrote: post #22
tinco wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It might very well be that they have relations, don't make it sound like that's a bad thing. It is a bad thing here: it shows that Google is apparently willing to act preferentially to favoured businesses, undermining the idea that search results are provided with neutrality.

No it doesn't. It means that Google employees can do stuff manually, when asked by a friend or colleague. It says nothing about Google as a business favouring Rap Genius as a business.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#32

Post by OoTheNigerian »

I do not understand why people are offended that they came back quickly AFTER doing a bit of penance.

Should their investors not have made calls? However, it should be noted that they did their part.

One of my favorite quotes is this: "To save a drowning man, he must first give you his hand"

If the Rap Genius guys were incompetent and did not do their part in removing the links so quickly (see main story for technical details) there would be little or nothing their investors would have been able to do about that.

BTW, it also helped that people really found Rap Genius useful. I'm sure many searched had rapgenius appended to it. So the lesson is, make your app so good that when Google delists you, it will make them look bad.

Thankfully?, there is also a precedence for other offenders to use. if you can detail you have atoned for your sins and Google insists your you must do a certain time, you know where to turn to.

BTW, this is Hackernews, and I look forward to the discussion of the (de)merits of how they scrapped and analyzed 177,000 links and not espousing of anger that they survived the punishment.

I'm sure Mahbod (my favorite) and co have learned that you do not go 'daaawging' when you are in a hole. I wish them success.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#33

Post by r0h1n »

kanamekun wrote: post #6

Pretty interesting decision to include a lengthy "technical digression" in their SEO apology: >

As I see it, the "technical digression" serves two purposes:

- first, they use it with Google to show how sincere they were about "cleaning up"

- second, and perhaps more important, it gives Google a public excuse to justify why they restored RG so quickly in rankings. As in, "Oh they did a very thorough job of complying by our standards that we had no option but to restore their status".

Unfortunately in this case Google's response speed comes across as a bad thing. Because it applies to only a very select group of sites that are either very rich (aka large advertisers) or very well connected.

[Edit: clarified imagined comment]

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#34

Post by dmn757 »

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?

Very observant... I wonder what Google would say about this. I would almost find this more egregious than their original offense due to the posts having nothing to do with lyrics.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#37

Post by holyjaw »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #32

I do not understand why people are offended that they came back quickly AFTER doing a bit of penance. Should their investors not have made calls? However, it should be noted that they did their part. One of my favorite quotes is this: "To save a drowning man, he must first give you his hand" If the Rap Genius guys were incompetent and did not do their part in removing the links so quickly (see main story for technica…

Just to hijack on one of your points: "it also helped that people really found Rap Genius useful."

This is painfully true, and I know it has been discussed in prior discussions. Rap Genius is without a doubt THE BEST lyrics site available, hands down. Even if the other sites weren't ad-ridden scammy buggy shitty websites, if they got their acts together and actually TRIED, Rap Genius would still be top dog.

I don't care for the attitudes or personalities of the people in charge, and I am absolutely disgusted that they felt the need to scam their Google rank, but I am willing to see that some infractions can be rectified through penance, and am happy to know that they will not be forced to shut down because of this fiasco.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#38

Post by ashray »

tinco wrote: post #31
ronaldx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might very well be that they have relations, don't make it sound like that's a bad thing. It is a bad thing here: it shows that Google is apparently willing to act preferentially to favoured businesses, undermining the idea that search results are provided with neutrality.

No it doesn't. It means that Google employees can do stuff manually, when asked by a friend or colleague. It says nothing about Google as a business favouring Rap Genius as a business.

The fact that you can request a google employee in a position to help you out to do so displays enormous leverage.

Imagine a business in Germany, Vietnam, or even.. Texas having to do the same? It's pretty much impossible. This is what happens to everyone else out there.

Which is what the parent is referring to when he says that google results aren't as neutral as they claim to be. They clearly favored someone with leverage in this instance.

But this is the only instance that we know of. So far.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#39

Post by grimlck »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #32

I do not understand why people are offended that they came back quickly AFTER doing a bit of penance. Should their investors not have made calls? However, it should be noted that they did their part. One of my favorite quotes is this: "To save a drowning man, he must first give you his hand" If the Rap Genius guys were incompetent and did not do their part in removing the links so quickly (see main story for technica…

Because it is a double standard. There are thousands of sites which get blacklisted by Google. I'm sure all of them fix their errors really quickly once they realize they are on the black list. And none of them get back on Google nearly as quickly as rap genius did.

If Google applied these rules consistently with all websites, I would have no problem with it, but they don't. This breaks the myth that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy - as it shows that the connections you have are as important as raw merit, if not more

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#40

Post by holyjaw »

pstack wrote: post #20
rdl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry to say, but your assessment of the site is 100% incorrect. It STARTED as a Rap Lyrics website, but it quickly expanded to be an ANY lyrics website (and they will probably expand beyond that)

The main driving force behind it is that anyone can edit the lyrics, and even better, anyone can ANNOTATE the lyrics to explain what certain sections mean.

Let's take for example the lyrics for Mumford & Sons' "The Cave": http://rock.rapgenius.com/Mumford-and-sons-the-cave-lyrics

I looked up this song one day trying to understand more of the allusions made in the song; I know the title itself alludes to Plato's 'The Cave' and wanted to delve deeper. Because of this site, I can see that Verse 3:

> So come out of your cave walking on your hands

> And see the world hanging upside down

> You can understand dependence

> When you know the maker's hand

is an allusion to St. Francis.

Most of the time when Rap Genius ISN'T the top result for lyrics when I google, I facepalm and go directly to their site.

I should emphasize here that this overly positive post isn't intended to condone their shady, spammy blackhat SEO tactics, but damnit if they aren't the BEST lyrics site by a fair margin.

Post reply on HN