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Its also sad thay they went about it in such a stupid, stupid way. They could have built a nice "Link to your favorite lyrics" widget for people to include in

Its also sad thay they went about it in such a stupid, stupid way. They could have built a nice "Link to your favorite lyrics" widget for people to include in their "homepages". Make the appearance customizable, jumble the HTML, and include some stock bla bla to make it "individual" and to appeal to google. Then announce a competition. We'll showcase the best homepages that link to our lyrics in the most creative way. Maybe give away some silly prizes. Completely legal, nothing for Google to complain about, but gives you the same effect very cleverly. Instead they did this brazen crap... makes them look very amateurish. Technically not very different, but the tone is completely different, and Google had no choice but to penalize it.

ddoolin 13y ago
Definitely amateurish. I shuddered a bit at the language used in their reply e-mail for the affiliate program. It's nearly condescending and, and...well, you get it. (http://searchengineland.com/google-is-looking-into-rap-genius-linking-scheme-masked-as-affiliate-program-180631 http://searchengineland.com/google-is-looking-into-rap-geniu...)
badclient 13y ago
Right on. I'd use a widget to embed lyrics with audio in every blog post if they made it easy. May be integrate with spotify. And create a Wordpress plugin.
jonahx 13y ago
Where can I find the guidelines that specify what is legal under Google rules and what is not? As someone who isn't familiar with rules, it's not obvious to me what the technical difference is between what they did and what you're suggesting. On a gut level your suggestion seems less spammy, but I'd like to know what the actual rules are.
- laugh7 13y ago
  Agreed. It is natural for a website to want to get traffic. How can Google prove that RG's tactic was for SERPs and not just for the direct link traffic from blogs?
walshemj 13y ago
That might have worked a few years ago links via widgets like that high risk I am afraid

ddoolin 13y ago

Definitely amateurish. I shuddered a bit at the language used in their reply e-mail for the affiliate program. It's nearly condescending and, and...well, you get it. (http://searchengineland.com/google-is-looking-into-rap-genius-linking-scheme-masked-as-affiliate-program-180631 http://searchengineland.com/google-is-looking-into-rap-geniu...)

badclient 13y ago

Right on. I'd use a widget to embed lyrics with audio in every blog post if they made it easy. May be integrate with spotify. And create a Wordpress plugin.

jonahx 13y ago

Where can I find the guidelines that specify what is legal under Google rules and what is not? As someone who isn't familiar with rules, it's not obvious to me what the technical difference is between what they did and what you're suggesting. On a gut level your suggestion seems less spammy, but I'd like to know what the actual rules are.

laugh7 13y ago
Agreed. It is natural for a website to want to get traffic. How can Google prove that RG's tactic was for SERPs and not just for the direct link traffic from blogs?

walshemj 13y ago

That might have worked a few years ago links via widgets like that high risk I am afraid