Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics • Hacker News Board

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#31

Post by ateevchopra » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:15 PM UTC

Thats well quite as expected. But I think out of those 493K, most is from the blogs posting their penalty news. This might go even lower !

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#32

Post by k-mcgrady » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:16 PM UTC

metaobject wrote: post #24

What exactly did they do that google didn't like?

They recruited bloggers and offered to tweet links to their posts in exchange for putting code linking to RG pages on their blog. It was on here a few days ago and Google quickly removed them from 1st page search results as punishment.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#33

Post by jeffmould » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:18 PM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #25

yalogin wrote: post #19

Why is Rap Genius afforded this coverage? There are a lot of SEO scammers out there and are punished as found. Reading through one of those TC articles it appears that they were interviewed on stage by TC during one of their events too. Why is a scammy link baity company given this importance?

Presumably because they are playing and pushing the story to get more inbounds links and thus higher SEO. The real story is that Google is incompetent and incapable of identifying these sorts of things unless a company is called out publicly on it. No wonder their search results are increasingly a disaster zone.

Was about to write a similar response. In the end they will walk away with the penalty removed, and hundreds of links from bloggers talking about this story. While the links may not be the highest of quality in terms, they will still be links from sites like TechCrunch, The Verge, and many others with high PR scores. The story will die down over the next couple days and then I am sure we will see another influx of stories as their ranking increases again, providing more links to their domain again.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#34

Post by ivanbrussik » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:18 PM UTC

sarreph wrote: post #22

ivanbrussik wrote: post #15

still way way too early to tell, lets take a look on the 28th before we all go making friends

What do you mean exactly by 'making friends'?

lol its too early...friends = threads :)

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#35

Post by orenbarzilai » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:18 PM UTC

mikeevans wrote: post #21

ecaron wrote: post #7

Can someone explain why this is a topic worthy of discussion? I get that they had a SEO tactic, Google penalized them, they offered an empty apology for it, and now we're up to the present. Stating the obvious of "traffic drops when Google penalizes you" seems like a "sun rose again today"-type story.

Not sure, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt that RG is a YC company.

Google just proved all that when someone breaks their laws they punish him, even if it's a YC company.

Who knows maybe because they are a well funded YC company Google decided to make an example out of them and won't forgive them so quickly.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#36

Post by k-mcgrady » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:18 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #11

OT but how do lyrics sites handle copyright issues?

I believe they are meant to license the lyrics although accordingly to this article many don't: http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/11/rap-genius-and-other-l...

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#37

Post by ivanbrussik » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:19 PM UTC

sarreph wrote: post #22

ivanbrussik wrote: post #15

still way way too early to tell, lets take a look on the 28th before we all go making friends

What do you mean exactly by 'making friends'?

its way too early to be friends as well, lets wait a few days.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#38

Post by sanderjd » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:19 PM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #25

yalogin wrote: post #19

Why is Rap Genius afforded this coverage? There are a lot of SEO scammers out there and are punished as found. Reading through one of those TC articles it appears that they were interviewed on stage by TC during one of their events too. Why is a scammy link baity company given this importance?

Presumably because they are playing and pushing the story to get more inbounds links and thus higher SEO. The real story is that Google is incompetent and incapable of identifying these sorts of things unless a company is called out publicly on it. No wonder their search results are increasingly a disaster zone.

Yeah, you're right, missing this makes them incompetent.

Does that word have any meaning at all anymore? It seems like everyone who isn't an amazing brilliant self-made billionaire is incompetent. Oh wait, I forgot, we were discussing the incompetence of a bunch of amazing brilliant self-made billionaires... So I guess it's everybody now.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#39

Post by adamnemecek » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:19 PM UTC

possibilistic wrote: post #29

adamnemecek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it's because they are not fans of their brogrammer antics. Read this thread for example (or any other Rap Genius thread on HN) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904224 The original link that was deleted was this http://aphyr.com/media/recruiters/rapgenius.txt

What did I just read? I don't understand that exchange at all. So Rap Genius sent a corny email to this guy trying to hire him. And...?

I posted it more for the response on HN, not so much the email itself.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#40

Post by wehadfun » Thu, Dec 26, 2013, 3:22 PM UTC

Could they simply pay Google $$$ to fix this issue?