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Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

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Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#61

Post by AndrewKemendo »

philangist wrote: post #53
greghinch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#3 definitely is why there is so much enthusiasm running around regarding their punishment

It's actually kind of bullshit too. It's in a similar vein to the joy people have in many of the 'Facebook is no longer popular among 14-16 year old' posts. These sites provide a valuable service, just because you don't like them doesn't justify being (in the parlance of the youth) a hater.

I disagree somewhat. Yes, I think that if people are creating value then their own personal behaviors should have little to no bearing on how that work is translated.

I think their affects do set a bad standard for tech founders, and just how people behave in general and those attitudes spread into how they run their business.

I can envision other future founders looking at these guys as successful and thinking, "yea that is how I have to act to make it big." In a similar way that The Game and all that has influenced dating, I think these guys applied some of that to the startup/hip/rap thing which in my opinion is detrimental and smacks of trying too hard, especially when they are all very well placed, affluent people.

Add to that the fact that they genuinely did shady things (regardless of whatever anyone else did) and the bullshit wears off even more. So maybe someone who is coming up will think twice about behaving similarly in all aspects.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#63

Post by NamTaf »

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.

You call it a "SEO tactic" here but I'm sure you'd not bat an eyelid if it were referred to as "growth hacking" elsewhere.

The problem is how much power Google holds over most of the web. You game the results and they turn their attention on you? Congrats, you're wiped out.

Essentially, there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's what's interesting here.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#64

Post by judk »

skrebbel wrote: post #28
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?

Three reasons: 1) The site itself isn't actually half bad, especially when compared to other lyrics sites. 2) They're a YC company, and took money from other big investors. This automatically makes them high-profile on places like HN. 3) The founders often publically act like douchebags, write emails with bad spelling, and generally seem to think that being cool is the most important part of running a startup. I susp…

On 3, I wonder if they think being cool is the most important part, or the reality is that they are executing on everything AND ALSO trying to be cool to differentiate themselves AMD get noticed, but the critics only see the PR front and ignore the rest.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#65

Post by obstacle1 »

NamTaf wrote: post #63
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.

You call it a "SEO tactic" here but I'm sure you'd not bat an eyelid if it were referred to as "growth hacking" elsewhere. The problem is how much power Google holds over most of the web. You game the results and they turn their attention on you? Congrats, you're wiped out. Essentially, there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's w…

>there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's what's interesting here.

Except in the cases where the line isn't blurry, i.e. the well-defined set of rules about which G has repeatedly said "we'll penalize you for ignoring these!" Unfortunately the tactic RG used wasn't a blurry-line grey-area tactic, it was one G clearly said don't use.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#66

Post by judk »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #61
philangist wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually kind of bullshit too. It's in a similar vein to the joy people have in many of the 'Facebook is no longer popular among 14-16 year old' posts. These sites provide a valuable service, just because you don't like them doesn't justify being (in the parlance of the youth) a hater.

I disagree somewhat. Yes, I think that if people are creating value then their own personal behaviors should have little to no bearing on how that work is translated. I think their affects do set a bad standard for tech founders, and just how people behave in general and those attitudes spread into how they run their business. I can envision other future founders looking at these guys as successful and thinking, "yea…

It is kind of funny how people think that only white rap-fans/rappers came from non-poverty backgrounds. Rap industry markets itself slickly.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#68

Post by benihana »

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.

>Can someone explain why this is a topic worthy of discussion?

I find it incredibly interesting to know just how hard they got hit. I find it interesting that maybe someone from rap genius will be in these comments providing some extra context and insight.

Can you explain why you care if other people discuss a topic you don't think is "worthy" of discussion? You know you can ignore the story and look at the entire rest of the front page, right?

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#69

Post by Phil_Latio »

tarheel12 wrote: post #55

Thats a huge drop. How accurate is Quantcast?

When even the main domain is on page 6 or whatever, it will drop more. Quantcast requires site owners to implement a tracker, so I guess it's pretty accurate.

Here is some drastic example I found recently (thin/spammy content penalty I guess):

http://extremetracking.com/free?login=fm3u91 http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/freemp3us.com

From 14,000,000 uniques a month down to ~80 a day :D But obviously Google still has work to do, since that site made a lot of money within that 1-2 months period.

Re: Rapgenius.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics

#70

Post by obstacle1 »

AVTizzle wrote: post #59
skrebbel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three reasons: 1) The site itself isn't actually half bad, especially when compared to other lyrics sites. 2) They're a YC company, and took money from other big investors. This automatically makes them high-profile on places like HN. 3) The founders often publically act like douchebags, write emails with bad spelling, and generally seem to think that being cool is the most important part of running a startup. I susp…

Also, nobody seems to mention the fact that this story was created out of an HN thread... I imagine that has a lot to do with everyone's interest in it.

Indeed. People are forgetting that the only reason RG came to G's attention is because Matt Cutts stumbled across the HN thread and took action.
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