Rap Genius is Back on Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#141

Post by HelloMcFly » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:09 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #137

skrebbel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting something. As a search engine user, I don't care whether the search engine firm is "fair", whether their rules apply equally to everyone or not. It's not a country, it's a search engine. You can say what you want about Rap Genius, but they're just about the only lyrics site that doesn't suck. As a searcher, I want to get to sites that don't suck. In the case of lyrics, that's Rap Genius. Google has…

Except that google is really an ad network, and if it's seen as favoring well-connected customers over not-well connected customers, then it's going to lose favor amongst those not-well connected customers.

Google's value is derived from its users, and its customers will remain if the eyeballs are there to justify the investment. The best way to keep those eyeballs is to continue to serve the best results, and in this case Rap Genius is often the best result.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#142

Post by unreal37 » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

aaronwall wrote: post #131

unbeli wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article. They are back because they did a lot of work finding all these bad links and using Google’s disavowal tool to kill them, not because of their VC funding or whatever other influence you think they have on Google.

Nice try. Removing 200 links out of nearly 200,000 links in a holiday week is not a lot of work. In fact, Google has told others waiting to be reconsidered that the wait time is multiple weeks. https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes/statuses/418734227228606464 Further, some sites which submitted reconsideration requests before RapGenius was penalized have not received a response. And in many such cases those other sites: h…

Not to argue with Aaron Wall on an SEO topic, but you read the same article I did. There were 200,000 total links to Rap Genius and most of them were legit. Only a small subset analyzed ended up being suspicious.

They got 200 webmasters to remove their links, a few didn't, and the rest ended up being "site scrapers" who steal other people's sites. They just added those to disavow. Seems like they acted very quickly to rectify every suspicious link they could find.

But yes, they got special treatment in having the manual penalty removed after only a few days. But it's a legitimately popular site. You'd expect Google to do that since its harming Google's own users during the penalty.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#143

Post by naner » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:16 PM UTC

Rap Genius appears to have offset their drop in search results traffic with all the publicity they've been getting from being penalized by Google.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#144

Post by aaronwall » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:17 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #137

skrebbel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting something. As a search engine user, I don't care whether the search engine firm is "fair", whether their rules apply equally to everyone or not. It's not a country, it's a search engine. You can say what you want about Rap Genius, but they're just about the only lyrics site that doesn't suck. As a searcher, I want to get to sites that don't suck. In the case of lyrics, that's Rap Genius. Google has…

Except that google is really an ad network, and if it's seen as favoring well-connected customers over not-well connected customers, then it's going to lose favor amongst those not-well connected customers.

This is already happening to some degree, however it has generally mostly been the smaller & weaker players who have been soaked first. And in many cases the web & search ultimately helped build up a lot of these players before later knocking them down.

A lot of people are quite apathetic until the impact is direct. They recognize their own usage of the service rather than empathizing with a story from someone who was soaked. Here is a perfect example from a smart, tech savvy person who is big on self-interest / own vertical, but entirely apathetic toward other verticals - and this post is less than 4 hours old https://twitter.com/blam/status/419537614014672897

The tricky part in all of this is that one man's life work is another man's spam. Everything at scale has some mix of original editorial vs user generated content vs scraped & reformatted content vs policing of the mix. Ultimately the entity with a built in audience will be able to win more and more verticals over time due to preferential placement. A lot of people are unaware of how the knowledge graph will keep extending to swallow a larger and larger portion of the overall query stream. Anything of significant value that can be structured eventually will.

One of the more alarming articles I have ever read was one from 2007 where the New York Times explained about Query Deserves Freshness coming about after Google found that their own new finance service didn't rank as well as it should have. That was the beginning of the end for the indy web. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03googl...

The 2009 recession was the icing on the cake that cut Google's revenue growth rate & got them fired up on moving beyond direct marketing to focus more on brand, brand, brand.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#145

Post by dreamfactory » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:23 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #123

JohnTHaller wrote: post #95

Honestly, this is just saddening. Google needs to have a consistent policy towards these blackhat SEO offenders and enforce it for everyone. RapGenius bought backlinks to artificially inflate their pagerank. They knew they were cheating but they did it anyway. They got caught. And they were hit with a manual action on Google. Sounds good so far. But that's where it stops. RapGenius, using the connections they have fr…

You're forgetting something. As a search engine user, I don't care whether the search engine firm is "fair", whether their rules apply equally to everyone or not. It's not a country, it's a search engine. You can say what you want about Rap Genius, but they're just about the only lyrics site that doesn't suck. As a searcher, I want to get to sites that don't suck. In the case of lyrics, that's Rap Genius. Google has…

As a user I care whether Google finds me the most relevant results from the biggest haystack or whether it editorialises those results - it's a big distinction. By that measure I'd say they definitely _shouldn't_ be penalising sites for finding loopholes in their algorithms but should simply close those holes up.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#146

Post by md224 » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:24 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #123

JohnTHaller wrote: post #95

Honestly, this is just saddening. Google needs to have a consistent policy towards these blackhat SEO offenders and enforce it for everyone. RapGenius bought backlinks to artificially inflate their pagerank. They knew they were cheating but they did it anyway. They got caught. And they were hit with a manual action on Google. Sounds good so far. But that's where it stops. RapGenius, using the connections they have fr…

You're forgetting something. As a search engine user, I don't care whether the search engine firm is "fair", whether their rules apply equally to everyone or not. It's not a country, it's a search engine. You can say what you want about Rap Genius, but they're just about the only lyrics site that doesn't suck. As a searcher, I want to get to sites that don't suck. In the case of lyrics, that's Rap Genius. Google has…

What you've said is correct, but it's also a bit myopic.

The whole point of Google's search algorithms is to "curate" results using algorithms and metrics based on the behavior of users on the Web. In a sense, the curation of content is crowdsourced, drawn from the activity of the entire network.

When Google takes actions that inject nepotism into this system, it sets a dangerous precedent. I don't want individual people at Google arbitrarily prioritizing what content I should be seeing. (There are other sites for that kind of curation.) I want the collective actions of Internet users to decide this via Google algorithms. There's an important difference.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#147

Post by ama729 » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:26 PM UTC

Taek wrote: post #135

robbrown451 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great in the short term. In the long term, having consistent and harsh punishments (whether manual or algorithmic) for SEO cheaters is very much in the interest of Google's users, because it preserves the integrity of the search results.

I don't think that punishment is necessarily effective in the long run either. If you are good at dirty SEO, you will accept your punishment on one site/business and restart with a different site/business, and hopefully last longer until getting caught this time. With the goal of minimizing overall dirty SEO, Google shouldn't get caught up in an over-emphasis on punishment. Especially when the website being punished…

> If you are good at dirty SEO, you will accept your punishment on one site/business and restart with a different site/business

It's not a black/white issue, sure for a very spammy website, it would work less (because that website is still out of the picture). But for a grey website like rapgenius, it would surely suck a lot more, because they would lose all their brand image, etc, which is quite something to build.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#148

Post by dreamfactory » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 10:27 PM UTC

robbrown451 wrote: post #130

skrebbel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting something. As a search engine user, I don't care whether the search engine firm is "fair", whether their rules apply equally to everyone or not. It's not a country, it's a search engine. You can say what you want about Rap Genius, but they're just about the only lyrics site that doesn't suck. As a searcher, I want to get to sites that don't suck. In the case of lyrics, that's Rap Genius. Google has…

That's great in the short term. In the long term, having consistent and harsh punishments (whether manual or algorithmic) for SEO cheaters is very much in the interest of Google's users, because it preserves the integrity of the search results.

Disagree. The sanctions that Google applies indicate that it is unable to effectively index a free web and is instead relying on editorial control and favouritism.

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#149

Post by bushido » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 11:07 PM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #134

bushido wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the point where you start suggesting that Matt Cutts was bribed When did I do that? I have not and am not suggesting that Matt Cutts or anyone at Google took a bribe of any kind whatsoever. I have on the other hand said that there is some uncertainty if favors may have been given/used to expedite the process of re-listing. Which if true, in itself looks really bad, simply because of the position of authority Goo…

You haven't addressed my argument at all. Replace bribery with favors, and my argument stands. I used both interchangeably (see point #2), and I've edited for clarification. If you want to keep going on the overly semantic line of argument, bribery = gifts, not just money.

Favor[0] == Help

Or quite literally if I go by a dictionary: an act of kindness beyond what is due or usual. Example: "I've come to ask you a favor". Synonyms: service, good turn, good deed, kindness, act of kindness, courtesy.

To further elaborate to address your failure to understand a semantic line of argument:

1) The terms Favor and Bribery are not interchangeable.

2) I have only used the word favor.

3) I have insinuated[1] that there is possibility[2] of an alleged[3] favor having occurred in expediting[4] the re-listing of RapGenius, and that this may have happened due to good connections from the VCs.

4) If true, this is not in any way illegal, by the law of the land (as opposed to bribery[6], which is illegal). And this would simply be a moral wrong doing to others who cannot use this speedy service based. This is due to the position of power Google has on web start-ups, websites and businesses.

5) In addressing your previous comment I stated that none of my statements can or should be construed[5] as referring to bribes or any thing of monetary value, this includes gifts.

Meanings and Definitions:

[0] Favor - an act of kindness beyond what is due or usual

[1] Insinuate - suggest or hint (something bad or reprehensible) in an indirect and unpleasant way

[2] Possibility - a thing that may happen or be the case

[3] Allege - claim or assert that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically without proof that this is the case

[4] Expedite - make (an action or process) happen sooner or be accomplished more quickly

[5] Construe - interpret (a word or action) in a particular way

[6] Bribe - a sum of money or other inducement offered or given in this way

Re: Rap Genius is Back on Google

#150

Post by benologist » Sat, Jan 04, 2014, 11:15 PM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #111

JohnTHaller wrote: post #95

Honestly, this is just saddening. Google needs to have a consistent policy towards these blackhat SEO offenders and enforce it for everyone. RapGenius bought backlinks to artificially inflate their pagerank. They knew they were cheating but they did it anyway. They got caught. And they were hit with a manual action on Google. Sounds good so far. But that's where it stops. RapGenius, using the connections they have fr…

I keep hearing people bandying about this "VC connection" baseless innuendo. How is that anything but baseless, cynical speculation? Remember, we're talking about someone (Matt Cutts) who penalized Google's own Chome website for improper links. If there was ever a conflict of interest, that would be it. The idea that Matt was doing RG a special favor through a16z or other investors is an extraordinary claim, and we'r…

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/disclosure/

    Also, I have invested in Perfect Third (the company that 
    makes the WakeMate), Zencoder, Cardpool, Tasty Labs,
    Drchrono, Grubwithus, PoundPay, Apportable, Mailgun, and 
    Parse. I have also invested in CircuitHub, PlanGrid, 
    Pixelapse, ZenPayroll, Trigger.io, Zenefits, and True
    Link Financial.

    I have also invested in Lowercase Capital (Lowercase 
    Ventures Fund I), Y Combinator (Y Combinator Fund II), 
    Lowercase 140, and Lowercase Spur.

Pretty reasonable to assume RG enjoyed a direct line to Cutts all through the entire thing.