I'll keep saying what I always have: Violate Google's terms of service at your own risk, and I won't help you do it.
But it doesn't answer many questions - if anything, it raises more. Rap Genius may lead to a lot of industry schadenfreude, or the enjoyment of seeing other's misfortune. Related: Are You 'Layering' SEO? You Should Be. Either the company behaves, doesn't rank and endangers the business or engage in the same risky tactics as competitors and endanger your business. I'm not excusing Rap Genius, but many industries, including lyrist sites, face a Google-driven catch-22. It's easy to see why sites start cutting corners. But it's maddening to see Google miss so many sites that engage in the precise tactics the big G forbids. I work with clients every day who point to competitors engaged in manipulative link schemes and say, "If they can do it, why can't we?!" I counsel patience and point out what can happen if they violate Google's rules. It's hard to resist the urge to cheat when everyone around you is cheating too. But this tornado-like practice of trashing one business while leaving neighbors unscathed puts businesses and the professionals who advise them to follow Google's rules in an impossible position. And unlike Rap Genius, they continue to benefit from these violations.ĭid Google miss all of this? Or did they choose to make an example of Rap Genius because the site got caught red-handed (hence, embarrassing the search giant)? Or did they simply penalize Rap Genius because their tactics were "more bad" than their competitors?
Related: How to Fix Your Website If You Violate Google's Quality Guidelines Click to Enlarge+īoth of these examples pointed to sites that rank in the top five on Google for 'lyrics.' One or two wouldn't ring any alarm bells at the search-engine powerhouse, but there was an abundance of these links - a clear violation of Google's rules. They're violating Google's terms of service, and benefitting from it, because they haven't been caught. But if Google doesn't detect this violation, the link probably helps a target lyrics site similar to Rap Genius rank higher for "C.R.E.A.M." Click to Enlarge+Īnother great example: A page where a blogger laments his chance of success as an artist but then links to lyrics for Johnny Cash's song "A Boy Named Sue." Again, if undetected, this link probably helps the target lyrics site rank higher. This link to the lyrics of Wu Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M." from an article discussing government appropriations is a perfect example. Even a quick glance revealed multiple violations of Google's terms of service.įor instance, Google says it will penalize sites that work to artificially acquire "non-editorial links," including links from unrelated blog posts on unrelated websites. I briefly reviewed top-ranking sites on Google for the search term "rap lyrics". In a Rap Genius blog post, the startup calls out competitors for "suspicious backlinks." I took a quick look, and they're right. Google chooses to ignore other lyric sites.Īnd they're still ignoring the link-building tactics of almost every competing site. The search giant only acted when a blogger with no Google affiliation revealed Rap Genius's behavior. So, Google either missed Rap Genius's questionable link strategy, or decided to ignore it.
Between September and November 2013, Rap Genius doubled the number of links pointing at their site, adding more than 20,000 to their link profile, according to Majestic SEO's link intelligence tool.Īnd it's exactly the kind of anomaly Google catches.
So basically Rap Genius purchased links with free promotion. Keep in mind, Rap Genius's methods were not subtle: They invited bloggers to join their "affiliate program," which meant bloggers placed Rap Genius links in posts in exchange for promotion.
(When I reviewed Rap Genius earlier this year, I didn't catch it either. So why did it take an unaffiliated blogger to out Rap Genius's methods? Either Google either didn't catch the problem or ignored it.