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Should RapGenius be able to "negotiate" with Matt Cutts and Google?

122 points by pccampbell 13y ago

I started my tech career working in Adwords Sales and Sales Operations at Google. One of the biggest complaints we received was our clients needed help getting ahold of someone regarding SEO problems. Of course, there was little we could do on the paid side - which was Google's policy. The whole point of Google's ranking algorithm is to keep it as much of a black box as possible with even Jason Calacanis getting nowhere with his Mahalo battle with Matt Cutts and team. I'm uncomfortable with what appears to be almost a direct line the RapGenius gents have with the Google team to come to what they've coined as a "resolution" between the two entities. With thousands of other sites being unable to get ahold of a human being at Google to resolve SEO problems, do you think RapGenius should have the ability to negotiate with Google? Do they have enough traffic to justify the conversation? Should that matter?

scottmcleod 13y ago
No - SEO is not a game to play in grey area, its a risk that they took by depending upon SERP for their source of traffic.
- pccampbell 13y ago
  I definitely agree. You need to treat Google SEO like any other platform that you build on. I'm curious to see if their negotiation on a resolution is met with deaf ears by the Google team. Google wins everything, and I hope they keep the penalty, even attacking the rest of the lyric ecosystem. Need to protect the user by ensuring fairness, IMHO.
- notastartup 13y ago
  I agree, if they give rapgenius leniency it would mean a double standard exists at Google regarding their core product that we have come to trust. Already duckduckgo is gaining more popularity because some of the trust regarding our privacy has really gone down for a good reason (Snowden).
  - pccampbell 13y ago
    Do you think DuckDuckGo can play the long game though? #GoogleWinsEverything
pastpartisan 13y ago
the rankings will be restored. rich, successful ppl always get their way
andrewljohnson 13y ago
Matt Cutts should also probably recuse himself from this issue. He is an investor in a YC round and multiple YC companies. That's an obvious conflict of interest, whether or not it affects the outcome. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/disclosure/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/disclosure/
- pccampbell 13y ago
  He's unfortunately the SEO poster child though, which is hard. Do you think there should be any line of communication between Google and a site for SEO? I'm torn on whether or not there should be a more formal process or they should just keep it completely locked up.
  - jmduke 13y ago
    I agree that there should be a more formal process, but I think Matt has done an absolutely sterling job.
    - pccampbell 13y ago
      Agreed, especially in the different SEO conversations that flair up (Calacanis at Mahalo, Google's problems, etc.). Just the way the RapGenius gents have said their talking with Google about a "resolution" is unsettling without a more formal process laid out.
- kapilkale 13y ago
  For what it's worth, Matt Cutts has historically put his responsibility as head of webspam above other interests. For example, he's penalized Google itself. http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pagerank-reduced-due-to-sponsored-posts-106551 http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pag... There's still a conflict of interest, and it is possible he is giving his interests more leniency.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Side note: it's interesting that he continues to serve in this position for many years. I see a lot of directors/managers shift around, but not really him.
rickyc091 13y ago
They shouldn't, but they probably will due to their investor.
z_ 13y ago
No.
bushido 13y ago
> do you think RapGenius should have the ability to negotiate with Google No. > Do they have enough traffic to justify the conversation Yes, maybe. > I'm uncomfortable with what appears to be almost a direct line the RapGenius gents have with the Google team to come to what they've coined as a "resolution" between the two entities. So am I. In the past I have seen Google responding and resolving penalization with some sites, where in the problem lay in the internally, with intentional/unintentional shady practices. I have no problems with this. But RG took some of their activities to a whole different level, one that I have seen before by blackhat marketers only. Just like I would not expect blackhat marketers to get away with it, I would not like Google or any other search engine to open doors to the possibility of people who got caught to have an easy out. Maintaining neutrality and upholding previously established best practices would also be fair to any new start-ups that may want to enter the lyrics space.
- pccampbell 13y ago
  It was essentially the same tactic as comment lurkers, IMHO.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    explain.
sergiotapia 13y ago
I also think it's pretty bad how the RG guys seem to be able to invoke Google at will.Especially considering how they've broken almost the most basic of Ranking Rules and used black hat techniques. I'd like a direct response from someone in charge from Google. Why, and how, are the RG guys getting 1 on 1 support?
- pccampbell 13y ago
  Article on getting ahold of Google: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006900.html http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006900.html Funny how most of the ways to get a response involve causing a scene to get attention for an answer.
RBerenguel 13y ago
They should just receive links to usual webmaster recommendations and Cutts' YouTube. And that should be it.
nknighthb 13y ago
I'm happy every time it's made clear that search engine results are the product of subjective factors and aren't "fair". It bolsters the argument that their results are expressive and protected as such, shielding them from interference by politicians.
dasmithii 13y ago
There's a good chance that they're gaining page hits from this controversy and, knowing the founders of Rap Genius (vaguely), I wouldn't be surprised if they capitalize and conjure as much attention as possible here. On a slightly different note, it doesn't seem right for Google to intervene with specific companies' page rankings. Although Google isn't breaking laws, the "black box" type of generic algorithm seems more ethical. Rather than favoring individual groups/sites/corporations, I think Google should maintain credibility by encompassing all rules, regulations, and penalties within one algorithm. Search engine results shouldn't be subjective.
- eropple 13y ago
  Out-of-band information can't practically be analyzed through algorithms (at least, not without getting a lot spookier). They know that a company is in violation of their link-sharing rules; acting on that doesn't seem unfair.
blueyes1977 13y ago
I found ridiculous so many things here: 1. Their black SEO practice around Justin Bibier as they call themselves RapGenius (LOL) 2. Those are the guys we're talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo (show me love ...yes) 3. They were 100% illegal, beside the big investment they got, they didn't pay copyrighters for using their lyrics. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/13/rap_genius_copyright_lawsuit_national_music_publishers_association_threatens.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/13/rap_genius_co... Now that said, why the hell someone like Google has to negotiate with them ? b
lazyjones 13y ago
I don't see why RapGenius should get a better customer service than everybody else from Google (i.e. none at all). Being able to negotiate anything at all would be way better than what paying customers (e.g. AdWords) get these days ...
austenallred 13y ago
The difficulty from the standpoint of Google is the absurd scale that they have to deal with. Indeed, a mission of indexing all information and making it immediately available is a daunting one. I get the sense that HN feels like these penalties are a rare thing; this type of ranking penalty is happening to an absurd amount of websites every day. If you were to rank the number of websites that received a manual penalty from Google on the same day as RapGenius by amount of traffic, my guess would be RapGenius wouldn't be in the top 10. They're not in a position to "negotiate" with Google, and Google doesn't "negotiate." They slap your wrist when they find you doing something dirty, and you try to recover your reputation. The only reason Google would try to work with RapGenius would be because of the PR RapGenius can generate, which appears to be happening, but there's no way they will just remove the penalty. My guess is at best RapGenius will get an expedited path to have the same options as any other site owner. The only recourse a website owner has when they have received a manual penalty is to disavow bad links, and hope that somehow they've identified all of the bad links in their link disavow. This is a nefarious process for even the best of SEOs, and the process is quite poor; I've even discussed this with Matt Cutts in the past, but it's understandable considering the scale Google has to deal with. You can't exactly have people taking phone calls. And in Google's defense, they only penalize you if you were trying something sketchy anyway, so it's your fault for playing with fire (except in the case of negative SEO, but that's another discussion). That said, while this ban will hurt RapGenius in the short-term, the penalty likely won't last forever. And considering that it doesn't appear that they're monetizing, it's not like they're losing revenue, just traffic for a short-term. Penalties like this, if properly disavowed, usually last about 30 days. Interestingly enough, I'm unsure how much the SEO spam would have helped RapGenius in the first place; all of the links would have had the exact same anchor text, which raises some red flags for Rap Genius. I'm not sure of the kind of scale they were trying to hit with the blogs, but it was likely either 1. Not going to move the needle or 2. Become so big it would hurt them. Even disregarding ethics of anti-black-hat SEO, it really was just a poor move on the part of Rap Genius SEO-wise. "Move fast and break stuff" can come back and bite you sometimes, but I'm confident RapGenius will figure it out in the end.
- pccampbell 13y ago
  This is the way it's supposed to work. This doesn't appear how it's working with RapGenius: TC article: http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/ "Update: Rap Genius’ founders have provided this statement, indicating they’re working with Google on being returned to better search result rankings: ... (statement from RapGenius talking about resolution) "Looks like Rap Genius and Google might come to some compromise where Google restores at least some of the startup’s search result ranking juice in exchange for it cleaning up its act. However, at least some of the decreased visibility is likely to stick around for a long time, impeding Rap Genius’ business. We’ll have more details on the outcome of the talks as soon as possible and we are awaiting a response from Google."
DanBC 13y ago
Fuck no.
lingben 13y ago
I'm confused, is there a new development? what do you mean by negotiate? The last thing I read on this was that they were penalized. Are they back in the SERPs?
captainmuon 13y ago
I've said it a couple of times. Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. It's not just that they can penalize other companies, and competitors (wheter they have a "legitimate" reason or not). They can make people's ideas, political positions, etc. essentially disappear. A stupid example: If they wanted to oppress trade unions, they could penalize every page with information about unions when someone searches for "workers' rights". More likely, they could work with oppressive governments to remove certain unpleasant historical events from people's sight. I wonder why the European Union doesn't do anything... they used to be very strict about antitrust laws, privacy, etc.. Probably someone has to step up and sue Google for them to get active. I could think of a few things they could do here. - One is to force Google to make their rankings more transparent. - Google could have offer a kind of appeals process if a manual penalty is applied. - The EU could put a special tax on the market leader, which would fund a subsidy for promising competitors. (Google's European office is currently registered in a low tax haven in Ireland.) None of this is without precedent, but there would have to be the right political intent to get something like this started. And before someone says Google is not in the EU's jurisdiction: Europe is a huge market. They have already fought antitrust trials with Microsoft, and MS could have said "screw you guys" and stopped doing business here, but instead they paid their penalties, because anything else would have been crazy. And if the EU is not going to do it, there are very self-conscious governments in Brazil, China, and India that might put pressure on Google & co.. (OTOH, we know that Governments like monopolists like Google when they help them censor and surpress information, but that's a different topic.)
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  I've said it a couple of times. Google (with others like Facebook, Apple) is so big, its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. That's been obvious for the better part of a decade now. People will scream bloody murder, and not without good cause, but it's either going to happen, or there's no point in even pretending to regulate public utility monopolies.
  - drone 13y ago
    Google is neither a public utility, nor a monopoly. You can always use one of dozens of other search engines. In fact, if you felt that Google was so bad, you can simply suggest others do so as well. Why does the government need to get in there and make Google the exact search engine you want, rather than the search engine that, clearly, the bulk of their customers want?
bobbyi_settv 13y ago
Is there any evidence that Google is negotiating with them? As far as I've seen, the only reason to think that is happening is that rap genius claimed they are as part of their attempted damage control. Most companies are basically shut down over Christmas and I doubt people at Google have been spending this week negotiating with them. What am I missing that led you to the opposite conclusion?
- rjknight 13y ago
  That was my thought too. The RG statement strongly implies that Google are helping them to "resolve" an "issue", which makes the whole thing sound like some technical glitch that Google and RG are coordinating as equals to resolve. In fact, RG just got caught blatantly trying to game their Google search ranking and Google righteously slapped them down for it. I would be surprised (and disappointed) if it turned out that any meaningful negotiation had taken place.
paulrademacher 13y ago
Where do you see this "direct line"? I've seen no sign of that.
jbigelow76 13y ago
>I'm uncomfortable with what appears to be almost a direct line the RapGenius gents have with the Google team to come to what they've coined as a "resolution" between the two entities. What do you mean by this, was there another update since the initial penalty was levied? RG still appears to be gone from the serps.
- adventured 13y ago
  I think this is what the comment was referring to: (the statement released by RG) "We are working with Google right now to resolve this. They’ve been really great, helping us identify changes we need to make, even on Christmas. We’re working on it as fast as we can, and expect to be back on Google very soon." http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    Maybe a Google employee is reading to them reaalllly slowly from the webmaster guidelines. It's Christmas, after all. Then again, "RTFM and leave me alone, it's Christmas!" would also be an understandable response... but I'm not gonna judge the Googz for being down with a more patient approach, and dropping some knowledge on grasshoppers in dire need.
jhonovich 13y ago
Google did not say they were 'negotiating' with RapGenius. The claim about 'working with' comes from RapGenius. It could be that RapGenius is mistaken or just thinking optimistically. Let's see what happens but it seems like a stretch that Google would feel compelled to 'negotiate' with RapGenius.
newnewnew 13y ago
Google can do whatever they want. If I was the victim of a public name and shame like this which included a very public Google punishment, I'd think it would be in Google's best interest to make an example of me and to make an example of how to get back in their good graces. Google may have shitty customer service, but they don't want it to appear that way in a high-profile case.
redthrowaway 13y ago
No. RapGenius broke the rules, and the punishment is temporary. Suck it up, take your medicine, and don't do it again.
zoltar92 13y ago
This is a slippery slope. You have to keep in mind that >2% (some estimates as high as 7%) of Google Queries are related to lyrics/ RG related content. They also (arguably) have much better, much more relevant content. As such a large amount of google searches would end up with someone wanting a RapGenius page - it's only fair that they would get preferential treatment over a niche startup/site/blog.
- zoltar92 13y ago
  Reference 1: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE6650FK20100706 http://mobile.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE6650... Reference 2: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/03/why-the-music-industry-wants-a-piece-of-lyrics-site-rap-genius/ http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/03/why-the-music-industry...
gesman 13y ago
The fact that Rapgenius claimed to be in negotiations with Google does not mean that they are in fact having some sort of "migration to white hat strategy" personal meeting with Cutts in the same room. "Live" person at Google might as well be delivering the old same beaten up "write unique content" and "remove bad links" message to them, albeit in personalized format. I don't think rapgenius is big enough to buy Google a drink for a free personalized SEO tips.

captainmuon 13y ago

> They're not in a position to "negotiate" with Google, and Google doesn't "negotiate." I would get pretty frustrated and angry in that situation, and given that Rapgenius' founders seem to be pretty immature, they are probably extremely angry. So... I wonder if there is a "nuclear option" for Rapgenius they can threaten Google with. What could they do that would create so much damage that it would force Google to move (possibly at expense of Rapgenius' business)? Throw their entire capital into a probably fruitless lawsuit? Create fake sites and spend all the money on SEO, then litter Google's search results (but not Bing's) with obscenities? Hire old fashioned thugs to clean up the Googleplex? Get together with other disgruntled people and start a dirt campaign? (I guess I have an unhealthy fascination for evil (rap-)genius schemes...)

jrockway 13y ago
> Hire old fashioned thugs to clean up the Googleplex? Clearly they should join forces with those anti-gentrification protesters that keep smashing the Google bus windows.
kristofferR 13y ago
Suing Google for libel because Google misrepresents them as a dead company through purposely hiding them from customers who search for them on Google? It's a reasonable conclusion for searchers to make that RapGenius doesn't exist anymore because they doesn't exist on Google, just like it's reasonable to assume that businesses removed from the Yellow Pages doesn't exist anymore.
- nthitz 13y ago
  Indeed, it appears multiple users thought RG was no more: https://twitter.com/ReesesPiece94/status/415939402422947840 https://twitter.com/ReesesPiece94/status/415939402422947840 https://twitter.com/Mattious_/status/415913576507772928 https://twitter.com/Mattious_/status/415913576507772928 https://twitter.com/Pouss_Mouss/status/415913988556201984 https://twitter.com/Pouss_Mouss/status/415913988556201984
- velis_vel 13y ago
  Haha, I don't think you know what libel is.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Suing Google for libel because Google misrepresents them as a dead company through purposely hiding them from customers who search for them on Google? People who search for RapGenius on Google will find plenty of information that indicates that they are a live company, so that would be ludicrous on its face. With Google sitting on billions in cash, I don't see how any frivolous lawsuit that RapGenius could afford to pursue without committing suicide would force them to move. > It's a reasonable conclusion for searchers to make that RapGenius doesn't exist anymore because they doesn't exist on Google They do exist on Google. If you search for them, there is plenty of information about them. Sure, you won't get a direct link to their site, but there is plenty of evidence that they exist that Google provides, including explanations of why the direct link doesn't appear. (E.g., for me right now, the first result if I search for "Rap Genius" is a news result with a time of "3 hours ago" titled "Google punishes Rap Genius for manipulative SEO tactics". I don't think that anyone would reasonably conclude from that the RapGenius doesn't exist any more.

itsprofitbaron 13y ago

Not going into all the regulation talk (partly because don't believe that Google needs regulation as another search engine is just an address bar/couple of clicks away) but with regards to: "One is to force Google to make their rankings more transparent." Google does not care about SEO; they care about bad SEO. You can see this from their Webmaster Help Videos[1] to saying how they 'serve' the results[2] to explaining how their search engine works[3]. It also becomes more apparent within their Webmaster Guidelines[4] that, they do not like bad SEO. You can easily use all of that knowledge to figure it out. "Google could have offer a kind of appeals process if a manual penalty is applied" They do. It's called a reconsideration request[5] "The EU could put a special tax on the market leader, which would fund a subsidy for promising competitors. (Google's European office is currently registered in a low tax haven in Ireland.)" That would actually discourage anyone from making a decent product. Why? Well if you make a good one people will use it, you will become market leader and you will receive a special tax. [1] http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp [2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en#3 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en#3 [3] https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchworks/index.html https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchwork... [4] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en [5] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35843?hl=en

CamperBob2 13y ago
Google does not care about SEO; they care about bad SEO. They should care about delivering the best quality search results to their users, and nothing else. As a user, I don't give a crap about SEO or link farming ethics or anything else. That stuff is Google's problem. By penalizing what is (reportedly) the best lyrics site, Google has made their problem my problem. A fair page ranking system would be entirely transparent, rigidly enforced, and not "punitive." Should they delist RapGenius for breaking the rules? Sure, if the rules themselves provide for that outcome. But the second the infraction is corrected, the penalty should end, and the site should be restored to its proper rank. Google is not a government agency. The more they act like one, the more people will treat them like one. Believe me, they aren't going to like where that road goes.
- itsprofitbaron 13y ago
  "They should care about delivering the best quality search results to their users, and nothing else" That's why they focus on Bad SEO because it means that they won't be showing the best results to their users. Bad SEO means manipulating the results to rank instead of, showing the best results to users. "A fair page ranking system would be entirely transparent, rigidly enforced" They penalised RapGenius for breaking their Webmaster Guideines[1] which are both transparent and enforced. "But the second the infraction is corrected, the penalty should end, and the site should be restored to its proper rank." That's actually how it works. As I tweeted to Josh on Twitter[2] this actually happens to all sites once they've got themselves out of a penalty and the Google Algorithms trust the site again. [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en [2] https://twitter.com/profitbaron/status/415918373575213056 https://twitter.com/profitbaron/status/415918373575213056
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    So it's not the case that a 30-day penalty period is being enforced against them, as several other posts have claimed? If so, I stand corrected.
    - itsprofitbaron 13y ago
      The people who are claiming that do not know anything about SEO. They're pulling figures from fresh air. For instance, in the case of JC Penney[1] it took them 90 days to recover from their penalty but it took Interflora[2] 11 days etc. The penalty is applied until, the site fall backs into the Google Guidelines[3]. Google actually helps Webmasters to get their site back in line with their guidelines through informing them what type of penalty[4] it is. For instance, if it is a link penalty like Rap Genius has, Google shows example links within Webmaster Tools (usually 3 of them) to provide insight, on links which Google considers to be falling outside of those guidelines. However, the links which are going to be affecting Rap Genius were predominantly because of the "tweet-for-links" system, the identification and removal of links should be relatively quick and straightforward. [1] http://searchengineland.com/90-days-later-google-lets-j-c-penney-out-of-timeout-78223 http://searchengineland.com/90-days-later-google-lets-j-c-pe... [2] http://searchengineland.com/interflora-gets-google-rankings-back-150366 http://searchengineland.com/interflora-gets-google-rankings-... [3] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en [4] https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/2604771?hl=en&ref_topic=2371401 https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/2604771?hl=en&re...

27182818284 13y ago

> its essentially infrastructure, and needs to be regulated. What? That's silly. Then a competitor offering not that would start to take a foothold the way Google took its foothold from the existing giants....In fact, it is happening right now with things like http://leap2.com/ http://leap2.com/ or https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/. If you're concerned about the size of that competition, then I'd remind you that Google didn't exist even 16 years ago. Which means there is plenty of chance for a small company to come up and start eating Google's lunch in areas they've lost their way. (I think search is actually one of the big ones)

EGreg 13y ago
I'm sorry but this is what bothers me the most about unregulated capitalism. You are discounting the massive advantage Google and other corporations have which they have accumulated over the years in the form of: * IP and patents * Actual employees and knowledge capital * Actual working designs and infrastructure * Brand recognition * Amount of businesses that rely on them If you say that a new startup can just start building a computer to rival the iMac, for example, you're missing the 1000 little things that go into it. Sure, your competitor might have a more open operating system, say. But it won't have the agreements with chip manufacturers. It won't have the "retina" displays, or other technology that Apple has accumulated over the years. At some point, the giant corporations just have too much for a startup to defeat. That's why most startups are basically picking off one little part and then the corporations buy them. It used to be that NEW technology was where startups were able to expand while old players couldn't adapt fast enough. For example, Microsoft was still small when the PC software revolution came about. However, now with "moonshots" and ambitious VC activity, the corporations have set up quite a few obstacles to that happening anymore.
- drivingmissm 13y ago
  IP and patents are not "unregulated capitalism" they are actually political creations enforced by a legal regime.
  - EGreg 13y ago
    ok, but even without these things the corporation has a massive head start and exclusive connections even if it's not with governments, it's with other corporations
    - sharemywin 13y ago
      don't forget giant legal teams
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  there's also behavioral patterns people develop "I'll just google it" and the simplicity of picking the biggest entity for people who arn't interested in technology. People arn't rational, and even if google is filtering out political sites performing propaganda through omission, there will be a huge population of people that either wouldn't hear about it, or wouldn't care. The free market doesn't fix everything.
  - walesmd 13y ago
    Using Google as a verb (ie. "just google it") is actually behavior the company discourages, or at least used too. It severely devalues the brand by generalizing the term. For example, do you really go shopping for Kleenex or do you just go buy the facial tissue you prefer, or is on sale, while referring to it as Kleenex? The fear is "just google it" becoming synonymous with search - even if that search occurs on Bing, etc.
- dyscrete 13y ago
  You changed my opinion on this. Google needs to fix the page rank algorithm.
- 27182818284 13y ago
  * IP and patents * Actual employees and knowledge capital * Actual working designs and infrastructure * Brand recognition * Amount of businesses that rely on them All of those things competitors like Microsoft had. There was still room for Google to rise. Microsoft is playing catch up with search and now IE. Google is trying to catch up with social, and even in the social place, there was a hashtag for Twitter overlayed on A Christmas Story yesterday.
ThinkBeat 13y ago
duckduckgo is an aggregate search engine. They do index certain crowdsourced sites but the rest of their results come from partnerships with other search engines from wiki " and from partnerships with other search engines like Yandex, Yahoo!, Bing and WolframAlpha.[3]" I have tried to search for where leap2 are getting their results from without finding anything substantial. There is fluff about "living search engine", "social search engine" and a few others. I find no evidence for (or against) that they have their own full Internet search engine. The problem for new companies trying to take on Google is the immenseness of their infrastructure. Lets say you want to start your own search engine. You have a great idea, some idea for your crawler, etc. Given that you dont have 10 000s of servers to store and run distributed searches etc you are at a great disadvantage. Can you do it with 5 servers in the cloud? How much space does one complete index of the entire internet take now? Back when Google started, their hardware was modest.