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Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

news.rapgenius.com

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Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#81

Post by lflux »

pkfrank wrote: post #71
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…

Is there a legitimate way to "tattle" on competitors that are blatantly abusing SEO practices?

Well, not including the link you wanted to boost in the first place is a good start.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#82

Post by DanBC »

ripberge wrote: post #46
davemel37 wrote: post #11

This site should be penalized up the wazoo. This "non-apology" apology, is the classic example of a tattletale at school...the classic excuse of its not my fault cuz everyone is doing it...more importantly, it is wrong, and demonstrates a "our sh don't stick mentality" exchanging a tweet for a link is considered exchanging services for a link, which does indeed fall under the buying links category.) Furthermore, whil…

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…

> In my experience Google has never penalized a competitor for doing this in my niche,

Just checking but have you reported the competitors?

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#84

Post by strathmeyer »

look_lookatme wrote: post #25
Goopplesoft wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very childish indeed, it was not an apology at all but a 'they're doing it too' kind of post. I've seen this type of childish behavior on a couple occasions with them (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo )... I'm quite surprised they decided take this approach. Edit: mirror, since I'm betting the text will be modified soon considering the reactions here. http://pastebin.com/dMh7dgxp

Childishness seems ingrained in this company's DNA.

Who, HackerNews'?? It's always so funny when people insult someone and assume the rest of us will know what they are talking about instead of assuming your comments apply to yourself.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#85

Post by pvnick »

davemel37 wrote: post #11

This site should be penalized up the wazoo. This "non-apology" apology, is the classic example of a tattletale at school...the classic excuse of its not my fault cuz everyone is doing it...more importantly, it is wrong, and demonstrates a "our sh don't stick mentality" exchanging a tweet for a link is considered exchanging services for a link, which does indeed fall under the buying links category.) Furthermore, whil…

You would have them be "penalized up the wazoo" because they didn't apologize in the way you would have preferred? Talk about being unreasonably punitive. I would hope that making an example out of somebody is not a formal strategy in search engine ranking. Instead, be rational and penalize them in proportion to the degree to which they cheat, just like everyone else.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#86

Post by ripberge »

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…

You're giving Google's algorithms way too much credit. The exact strategy you described still does work--and that's really the sad part.

That's why Google has to have these scare tactics to stop people from doing them. If they didn't work then Google and you and everyone else who's up in arms over this would just ignore these links.

I can guarantee you that if you do a backlink analysis of everyone ranking ahead of rapgenius for these search terms they will have thousands of these types of backlinks.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#87

Post by angryasian »

pathdependent wrote: post #60

This just got more interesting. I certainly found what they did distasteful. Their non-apology makes me lose tremendous respect for a company whose product I sincerely like and frequently use. As other people mentioned, they come off as whiny children -- "but Sally did it first!" At the same time, I recognize that they might have just pulled off something really smart. If they had came out and said, "hey, Google, you…

they offered no proof and used a lame excuse for justification.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#88

Post by newnewnew »

gmisra wrote: post #20

This is complicated. 1. rapgenius is probably the least spammy lyrics site on the internet, and definitely so amongst those on the first page of search results. As a consumer, I would not have a problem with Google, et al giving rapgenius results a special algorithmic bump to move them up. I also know that this is an opinion - it may be a popular opinion, but it is still inherently subjective. 2. If I was in rapgeniu…

I can't tell if Hacker News hates African-American culture, or just white boys who take part in it. If they were annotating Opera Librettas and spoke in Victorian English, I'm sure HN would love them.

It's not like they are complete posers. They got investment from Nas.

Re: Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

#89

Post by 001sky »

gmisra wrote: post #20

This is complicated. 1. rapgenius is probably the least spammy lyrics site on the internet, and definitely so amongst those on the first page of search results. As a consumer, I would not have a problem with Google, et al giving rapgenius results a special algorithmic bump to move them up. I also know that this is an opinion - it may be a popular opinion, but it is still inherently subjective. 2. If I was in rapgeniu…

This is complicated.

1. rapgenius is probably the least ...

2. If...

3. But...

As they say...

= So, its not that complicated. I think you got the main ponts.

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