2014: Rap Genius announced on Saturday that it is back in Google's search rankings. In a blog post
explaining the situation, the lyrics site said, "We owe a big thanks to
Google for being fair and transparent and allowing us back onto their
results pages. We overstepped, and we deserved to get smacked."
The creators of Rap Genius awoke on Christmas morning to find a
particularly large lump of coal in their stockings, courtesy of Google.
The search engine removed the lyrics site from its search ranks as
punishment for attempting to game its algorithm through a strategy known
as "growth hacking." As of Friday morning, Rap Genius still did not
show up in a regular Google search (screenshot below), although its
Twitter account and numerous stories detailing Google's actions did.
This situation shines a light on the murky world of search engine
optimization, colloquially known as "SEO" or "growth hacking," and the
value of search terms like "Justin Bieber." However, more importantly,
it exposes the power Google has to make or break websites that rely on
search traffic.
The controversy started after web entrepreneur John Marbach published a blog post
that included an email from Rap Genius cofounder Mahbod Moghadam with
instructions to place links to Bieber lyrics from Rap Genius in an
upcoming post, regardless of the content of his work. Hyperlinks are
crucial to Google's search algorithm and a cornerstone of basic SEO.
As Marbach explains, Bieber is a popular person to search on the
Internet, especially with a new album (and thus new song lyrics). A post
that includes some of the Rap Genius links will appear to Google's
search algorithm as a great page to direct Beliebers, boosting the
post's traffic and Rap Genius pages in Google's rankings.
The blog post was widely disseminated and stirred up criticism about
whether Rap Genius's strategy had violated Google's webmaster
guidelines, which prohibit the inclusion of hyperlinks for the sole
purpose of improving search engine rankings. Google took notice and the
site and removed it from its search. Rap Genius still shows up on Bing
and www.rapgenius.com still loads. It just doesn't show up on Google.
Rap Genius posted a response on its blog,
admitting wrongdoing and explaining its strategy. The site also pointed
out that practice has become somewhat common for lyrics sites.
"We effed up, other lyrics sites are almost definitely doing worse stuff, and we’ll stop. We’d love for Google to take a closer look at the whole lyrics search landscape and see whether it can make changes that would improve lyric search results."
However the damage was done. Google removed the site from its search
results. That sent Rap Genius traffic plummeting, as Digg's David Weiner
shows:
That is the kind of power Google wields. But with great power comes great responsibility, and even greater government scrutiny. Google has been the subject of a Federal probe
about how its search rankings work and whether the company has unfairly
favored some sites over others. Rap Genius is currently a free site
with no advertisements, although it received $15 million in funding in 2012 from venture capital shop Andreessen Horowitz. If Rap Genius were to eventually bring in revenue via advertising, Google would effectively have a killswitch on the site.
The sudden removal of Rap Genius took some by surprise because the
company's error could be considered a rather minor violation of Google's
search terms, and it's a practice that is not entirely uncommon.
Google's enforcement of these practices has been taken to task recently,
including a detailed post by online marketing agency Nenad SEO that highlights how some big spenders employ bloggers to embed high-value links into posts.
Marbach told Mashable that he did not intend to target Rap Genius,
but rather looked to expose a practice that has become common among
websites seeking to boost Google search traffic:
"I didn't intend for it to spiral out of control like this but it
certainly has. They're not the only ones that should be worried,"
Marbach told Mashable. "This is all completely against the
rules but it's what you have to do to fight to survive because the
revenue means so much for them."
Rap Genius did not immediately respond to our request for comment but
has reportedly been in talks with Google to return to its search ranks,
which should render this situation a historical footnote. However,
other sites that pursue growth hacking strategies have been duly warned:
Google giveth, and Google can taketh away.
fuente original: mashable.com
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