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Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

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Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#161

Post by girvo »

davemel37 wrote: post #79
ripberge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very misinformed if you think these strategies do not work. They are a necessity for a startup in very high competition niches. Take a look at the source of the very reputable: www.usatoday.com/sports/ and search for "NFL Tickets". Blatant link buying by vivid seats. SeatGeek does this all over the place as well. When you have really strong competitors buying links like this and getting away with it--it's the…

I didn't say buying links doesn't work. I said asking for a series of exact match anchor text links, on the bottom of a blog post on a site that is likely irrelevant, is very unlikely to work. More importantly, any strategy that is against Googles quality guidelines that works today, probably wont work forever, or even for another several months. The pain and suffering of getting slapped by google is much too intense…

While you're right, doesn't it scare anyone else that your entire business can be at the whim of Googles algorithms and decisions? :(

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#162

Post by lfender6445 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #22

I'm kind of disappointed that it didn't start with "Yoo waddup Googz!"

That is hsyterical! I suppose this is the kind of behavior everyone is up in arms about as being obnoxious or unprofessional but I love it.

Who cares how the guys act, they made a a great product that pulls in a strong majority of traffic for a given subject.

That's a lot more than most of the users here can say.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#163

Post by georgemcbay »

lfender6445 wrote: post #162
georgemcbay wrote: post #22

I'm kind of disappointed that it didn't start with "Yoo waddup Googz!"

That is hsyterical! I suppose this is the kind of behavior everyone is up in arms about as being obnoxious or unprofessional but I love it. Who cares how the guys act, they made a a great product that pulls in a strong majority of traffic for a given subject. That's a lot more than most of the users here can say.

"that pulls in a strong majority of traffic for a given subject."

Not anymore now that Google brought the ranking hammer down on them.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#164

Post by ericabiz »

davemel37 wrote: post #141
cardine wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Gaming SEO is attractive to almost everybody. Google needs to make it so painful to get caught, that people won't bother risking it in the future. If Google makes it painful to get caught while also doing a poor job algorithmically catching people, it just incentivizes people to do "pump and dump" type sites where they use blackhat tactics to get a lyric site to the top of Google and then rinse and repeat when t…

"The most optimal way to make money with SEO right now is to rank quickly with blackhat SEO tactics and then when you get penalized you create a new site and start over again. " I am not sure which blackhat strategies you are referring to, but I find that long term the ROI on doing legit strategies greatly outperforms blackhat strategies. (I should note that i have no idea how to cloak or hack edu sites, so I am most…

This post is a day old, but I wanted to add this in in case others think that Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) has not been penalized: http://moz.com/blog/widgetbait-gone-wild

"We soon ranked for competitive keywords such as "Cash Advance," "Payday Loans," and a few EDU lead generation terms. Our success led to Google receiving a number of spam complaints along with some unfavorable press in the Guardian that referred to me as genius/fiend. The consequence of all of this is that we were penalized by Google. We no longer ranked for "Free Online Dating" and other dating related keywords. In fact, we no longer even rank for very brand-specific keywords such as "JustSayHi". In short, we had been completely banned from search results.

As soon as we discovered that we had been penalized, we immediately filed a reconsideration request. Matt Cutts got involved in the case personally, but after a couple of emails, the penalty was not lifted."

Sounds familiar!

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#165

Post by davemel37 »

ericabiz wrote: post #164
davemel37 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The most optimal way to make money with SEO right now is to rank quickly with blackhat SEO tactics and then when you get penalized you create a new site and start over again. " I am not sure which blackhat strategies you are referring to, but I find that long term the ROI on doing legit strategies greatly outperforms blackhat strategies. (I should note that i have no idea how to cloak or hack edu sites, so I am most…

This post is a day old, but I wanted to add this in in case others think that Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) has not been penalized: http://moz.com/blog/widgetbait-gone-wild "We soon ranked for competitive keywords such as "Cash Advance," "Payday Loans," and a few EDU lead generation terms. Our success led to Google receiving a number of spam complaints along with some unfavorable press in the Guardian that referred to…

Thanks for the link. What a great discussion from the old seomoz days...

I think matt's strategy today would be more of a growth hack than a link building strategy. I think egobait still works quite well.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#166

Post by mcgwiz »

smackfu wrote: post #136
mcgwiz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do find "juvenile" or "offensive" about them? The rap subject matter they cater to? I've always found them reasonably professional, particularly their evidence-driven handling of the Heroku load distribution debacle. http://news.rapgenius.com/James-somers-herokus-ugly-secret-l...

Did you see the original email that prompted this whole thing? It sounds like a frat boy. http://jmarbach.com/rapgenius-growth-hack-exposed

Wow, haven't seen that. Agree it appears unprofessional and frat-ish. On the other hand, he may have found this colloquial tone is more effective than a professional one given the specific audience they are communicating with (people that publish youth- and music-oriented blogs).

I feel that being able to communicate in a traditionally-professional manner increases overall chance of success. But this is only because it is generally accepted that such a tone can signal trustworthiness. So even more important is the ability to communicate trustworthiness, whatever that may precisely mean, and the exact parameters of this vary by correspondents. If the people you truly value are skeptical of symbols of tradition and establishment, then a good marketing practice would be to adopt an anti-establishment brand.

So while I'm aware of tone, I try to refrain from overreacting to it, and try to give the content/actions a fair shake. All that said, in this particular case of collusive link building, I do find him shady and abusive/disrespectful toward the internet community.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#167

Post by songmeanings »

girvo wrote: post #160
seiji wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the least spammy lyrics site on the internet Is songmeanings spammy at all? They didn't even have ads for the longest time, and they don't do crappy a-dozen-pop-unders like other sites these days.

I loved songmeanings back in the day. A lot of cool insider info on bands I liked, explaining stuff in a way line-by-line annotation doesn't, but they never took advantage of that and stagnated IMO.

How would you improve SongMeanings? What would make you visit again? Would love, and appreciate, the feedback.
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