8 ms·

Can someone explain why this is a topic worthy of discussion? I get that they had a SEO tactic, Google penalized them, they offered an empty apology for it, and

by ecaron 13y ago

Can someone explain why this is a topic worthy of discussion? I get that they had a SEO tactic, Google penalized them, they offered an empty apology for it, and now we're up to the present. Stating the obvious of "traffic drops when Google penalizes you" seems like a "sun rose again today"-type story.

fat0wl 13y ago
eh i think this falls into the category of "if you don't care don't click the link". some people are interested in stats...
snowwrestler 13y ago
I think folks are interested to see how much the penalty hurts.
- bushido 13y ago
  I personally know of a number of legitimate sites that were invariably affected due to content and blog farms harvesting their content when Google's panda algorithm rolled out. Those penalties hurt a lot of good people! Anyways, this one is a bit more complex than how much the penalty hurts, rather it's because, a well known and well funded start-up adopted shoddy traffic building practices that were unacceptable years ago, got caught and then had swift and targeted judgement bestowed upon them. However much people understand that sometimes business needs to be conducted in a grey area, there is a certain amount of satisfaction when the system catches up and behaves fairly.
  - michh 13y ago
    What's a legitimate site? Plenty of sites most people would call "legitimate" like high profile blogs or ecommerce sites engage in activity that's frowned upon by Google. The fact that some unwanted behaviour was no longer rewarded isn't exactly a penalty. What RapGenius (also a legitimate site in the sense that they're not scammers and providing an useful service) did wasn't just unwanted behaviour but specifically forbidden. And yes, they're far from alone in what they did. Which is exactly why Google is making an example out of them. I know, it sucks, all your competitors doing similar things forces you to choose between taking this risk and never making it in the first place. But that's exactly why it's a good thing Google is making a stand and setting an example. It's a move towards a level playing field where nobody is making the internet a worse place by engaging in tricks like link farming rather than a level playing field where everyone is doing it and the end user suffers the consequences.
  - johnpowell 13y ago
    Same here. I am in no way affiliated with Fluther other than being a user and Panda completely screwed them. I think they got screwed because Mahalo scraped their RSS feed to steal their content while providing links to the original content. So there was a thousand links going to Fluther from a shithole of a site.
- wozniacki 13y ago
  I think people - foreigners and valley outsiders for the most part - are often genuinely clueless about the workings of the valley. They are quite apprehensive of the degree of even-handedness that is at play in the valley. They suspect an air of nuanced in-group favoritism, within startups here, that help propel some and sink others.[1] Hopefully these kind of actions (on behalf of Google) help dispel such notions. [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/13/silicon_valley_meritocracy_reuters_story_finds_connections_background_matter.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/13/silicon_v...
adamnemecek 13y ago
Part of it might be Schadenfreude since HN does not seem to think much of RG.
- fat0wl 13y ago
  why is that? i assumed HN would like then since i remember a bunch of articles about RG being big RoR proponents
  - adamnemecek 13y ago
    I think that it's because they are not fans of their brogrammer antics. Read this thread for example (or any other Rap Genius thread on HN) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904224 The original link that was deleted was this http://aphyr.com/media/recruiters/rapgenius.txt http://aphyr.com/media/recruiters/rapgenius.txt
    - possibilistic 13y ago
      What did I just read? I don't understand that exchange at all. So Rap Genius sent a corny email to this guy trying to hire him. And...?
      - adamnemecek 13y ago
        I posted it more for the response on HN, not so much the email itself.
      - dionidium 13y ago
        ...and he said "no thanks" because he does not approve of RG's past behavior. They persisted. And then he said no again in verse form. That's pretty much the whole story.
      - vdaniuk 13y ago
        What you've just read was manufactured outrage for fun and profit.
mikeevans 13y ago
Not sure, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt that RG is a YC company.
- orenbarzilai 13y ago
  Google just proved all that when someone breaks their laws they punish him, even if it's a YC company. Who knows maybe because they are a well funded YC company Google decided to make an example out of them and won't forgive them so quickly.
  - xuki 13y ago
    Google even penalized its own product http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pagerank-reduced-due-to-sponsored-posts-106551 http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pag...
skizm 13y ago
It is interesting to see just how much it hurts a site like RG.
belorn 13y ago
In one of the other threads, some stated that Google do not have monopoly status. The claim they used was that google only has 25% of the search market. This topic is interesting because it shows how much in a monopoly status google really is in in controlling where traffic goes on the net.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  I'd replace the word monopoly with popular.
  - belorn 13y ago
    "A monopoly (from Greek monos μόνος (alone or single) + polein πωλεῖν (to sell)) exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service and a lack of viable substitute goods. The verb "monopolize" refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors." - Wikipedia You can monopolize an market by popularity, and thus create a monopoly. However, monopoly and popularity is not the same word.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      Google is not the only supplier to internet searches and is not excluding competitors. They are merely very popular and are thus not a monopoly.
      - throwawaykf03 13y ago
        You are interpreting "monopoly" literally. In the context of antitrust law, you only need to have a big enough market share to appear on regulators' radars. The actual market share threshold varies from country to country, but typically it's around 60%. Google certainly meets that criteria in many countries, not only for search but for online video as well. As for "excluding competitors", Google is having a tough time with antitrust regulators in the EU for exactly that. For a more obvious example, see their shenanigans with YouTube and Windows Phone.
NamTaf 13y ago
You call it a "SEO tactic" here but I'm sure you'd not bat an eyelid if it were referred to as "growth hacking" elsewhere. The problem is how much power Google holds over most of the web. You game the results and they turn their attention on you? Congrats, you're wiped out. Essentially, there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's what's interesting here.
- obstacle1 13y ago
  >there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's what's interesting here. Except in the cases where the line isn't blurry, i.e. the well-defined set of rules about which G has repeatedly said "we'll penalize you for ignoring these!" Unfortunately the tactic RG used wasn't a blurry-line grey-area tactic, it was one G clearly said don't use.
benihana 13y ago
>Can someone explain why this is a topic worthy of discussion? I find it incredibly interesting to know just how hard they got hit. I find it interesting that maybe someone from rap genius will be in these comments providing some extra context and insight. Can you explain why you care if other people discuss a topic you don't think is "worthy" of discussion? You know you can ignore the story and look at the entire rest of the front page, right?
- ecaron 13y ago
  >Can you explain why you care if other people discuss a topic you don't think is "worthy" of discussion? I thought there might be a piece to this story that I was missing. I gained a lot of value from the replies to my question (esp. the conversation spawned from @snowwrestler's comment.) >You know you can ignore the story and look at the entire rest of the front page, right? You didn't really need this in your comment. It was a bit of snark that devalued your otherwise justified response.
  - d23 13y ago
    > It was a bit of snark that devalued your otherwise justified response. No it wasn't. Comments like yours are peppered throughout HN and Reddit, and the answer is always the same: the users found it interesting. It's a democratic voting system -- get over it.
    - yapcguy 13y ago
      How do you know it's a democratic voting system? Just because you assume it is, doesn't mean it is. Just ask around, plenty of stories about being mysteriously shunted off the front page. RapGenius is a YC company and always seems to get attention on HN whenever there is some kind of perceived grievance against the company. Whether it's Google or Heroku, there's always a lot of screaming and shouting.
logicallee 13y ago
For me, it's incredibly interesting because I did not find anything wrong with the tactic they used: in fact, it is far, far better than actual SPAM techniques they could have used instead. Or the bullshit tweaks to content that other sites use to improve SEO score, when those tweaks do not benefit the consumer in any way. Think about the fact that there's a human in the loop, and that it's a plug or tit-for-tat. The ways that companies actually do SEO 'within the rules' is way, way worse than that. Also as a consumer I have only been on their site < 10 times but I loved it each time. It is an actual benefit for them to gain ranking. They have a real service, and a good one. It also seems quite genuine, from the tone of the email. Totally normal. You might think I have some association with rapgenius, but I don't: my only association is that the handful of times I got to their site, I was absolutely thankful and totally surprised at the quality of the result. By contrast, there is a good chance there are textual quotations I've searched for where I missed good commentary there that I would have appreciatied. All of these aspects, especially above-all the fact that consumers are happy when they do get to the rapgenius site, that combine to make this story very interesting to me. I see rapgenius as the good guys, and very honest, in their attempt to gain additional exposure on real content.
joelrunyon 13y ago
The funny thing about this whole controversy is that they're getting more organic links to rapgenius. When the penalty is taken care of - they may be sitting in a better position than they were previously.
- d23 13y ago
  I don't think organic links matter much at this point when you can't even Google their name and find them on the front page.
  - joelrunyon 13y ago
    That's why I included "When the penalty is taken care of" in my statement.
- d0ugie 13y ago
  If you're right, and were this actually intentional too, well, that would be genius. But given that their traffic is maybe off two-thirds now and that it is unknown how long google will leave the lights on (weeks, maybe months), during which time this will be long-flushed out of the news cycle and it becomes harder and harder to recover, and harder to secure things like more capital when you look this stupid, that's a high-risk bet. I'd say sabotage is more likely.
ruswick 13y ago
Why? Because the sheer magnitude is crazy. Rap Genius's traffic fell by nearly two thirds! This is a very prominent, YC-affiliated startup that is being nuked by Google. It should come as no surprise that the news is seen as significant by the HN crowd. Moreover, I think many people are upset with the scope of Google's punishment. De-weighting RG is one thing, nuking it into the ground is entirely different, and is in my opinion unwarranted. Even searching directly for the name of the site does not yield any Rap Genius results. If I type "Rap Genius" into Google, I am justified in expecting Rap Genius to be the first result. Period. When Google goes out of its way to effectively expunge a site from existence (to the extent that Google can expunge a site), they are doing a massive disservice to their users and are degrading the quality of their search results. There is no reason that a response of this magnitude by Google is justified, and by issuing such a draconian response, Google has lessened the usability of their product and done a disservice to their users.
- GuiA 13y ago
  >De-weighting RG is one thing, nuking it into the ground is entirely different, and is in my opinion unwarranted. If I type "Rap Genius" into Google, I am justified in expecting Rap Genius to be the first result. Period. When Google goes out of its way to effectively expunge a site from existence (to the extent that Google can expunge a site), they are doing a massive disservice to their users and are degrading the quality of their search results. Necessary reminder that Google does whatever the fuck they want with their service, and that no one is in a position to expect anything. Does it suck? Yes. Is it a predictable outcome of the free market on which Silicon Valley and the tech industry in General is built? You bet.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Moreover, I think many people are upset with the scope of Google's punishment. De-weighting RG is one thing, nuking it into the ground is entirely different, and is in my opinion unwarranted. If the impact wasn't significant, it wouldn't be a disincentive to engage in black hat SEO. > There is no reason that a response of this magnitude by Google is justified Yes, there are reasons. The reasons are "specific deterrence" and "general deterrence".
- 13y ago
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Fundamentally it is the magnitude. Web sites often manage themselves to a metric called "RPM" or revenue per thousand. It can be thousand 'views' or for people who are interested in accuracy per thousand 'visits'. Unique IPs often translate as a good metric for 'visits'. So if your traffic is 1.5M uniques and drops to .5 uniques, then your revenue may also have just dropped 66%. If you were staffed to be cash flow positive at your previous traffic rate, you now find yourself burning cash at an alarming rate. Your response, dictated by your reserves, is either lay off a bunch of people to curb your burn rate, or delay your accounts payable, or both. If this happens at an 'inconvienient' time, it can sour acquisitions in process, or deals with initial outlays, to be blunt it can kill you. So then here is the thing, Google has no good way of knowing how you got to your organic ranking. There is no 'what is the rank of this place without these links' sorts of computations. So there isn't a good way to judge. But judge they must, lest others abuse their algorithm, and so they do so. Now lets speculate that they kill off Rap Genius. Overall what does that do? Who does it help? Is it justice? Lots of thorny ethical questions, not many good answers. And no way to make restitution. A sad place to be.

by ecaron 13y ago

fat0wl 13y ago

eh i think this falls into the category of "if you don't care don't click the link". some people are interested in stats...

snowwrestler 13y ago

I think folks are interested to see how much the penalty hurts.

bushido 13y ago
I personally know of a number of legitimate sites that were invariably affected due to content and blog farms harvesting their content when Google's panda algorithm rolled out. Those penalties hurt a lot of good people! Anyways, this one is a bit more complex than how much the penalty hurts, rather it's because, a well known and well funded start-up adopted shoddy traffic building practices that were unacceptable years ago, got caught and then had swift and targeted judgement bestowed upon them. However much people understand that sometimes business needs to be conducted in a grey area, there is a certain amount of satisfaction when the system catches up and behaves fairly.
- michh 13y ago
  What's a legitimate site? Plenty of sites most people would call "legitimate" like high profile blogs or ecommerce sites engage in activity that's frowned upon by Google. The fact that some unwanted behaviour was no longer rewarded isn't exactly a penalty. What RapGenius (also a legitimate site in the sense that they're not scammers and providing an useful service) did wasn't just unwanted behaviour but specifically forbidden. And yes, they're far from alone in what they did. Which is exactly why Google is making an example out of them. I know, it sucks, all your competitors doing similar things forces you to choose between taking this risk and never making it in the first place. But that's exactly why it's a good thing Google is making a stand and setting an example. It's a move towards a level playing field where nobody is making the internet a worse place by engaging in tricks like link farming rather than a level playing field where everyone is doing it and the end user suffers the consequences.
- johnpowell 13y ago
  Same here. I am in no way affiliated with Fluther other than being a user and Panda completely screwed them. I think they got screwed because Mahalo scraped their RSS feed to steal their content while providing links to the original content. So there was a thousand links going to Fluther from a shithole of a site.
wozniacki 13y ago
I think people - foreigners and valley outsiders for the most part - are often genuinely clueless about the workings of the valley. They are quite apprehensive of the degree of even-handedness that is at play in the valley. They suspect an air of nuanced in-group favoritism, within startups here, that help propel some and sink others.[1] Hopefully these kind of actions (on behalf of Google) help dispel such notions. [1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/13/silicon_valley_meritocracy_reuters_story_finds_connections_background_matter.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/13/silicon_v...

adamnemecek 13y ago

Part of it might be Schadenfreude since HN does not seem to think much of RG.

fat0wl 13y ago
why is that? i assumed HN would like then since i remember a bunch of articles about RG being big RoR proponents
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  I think that it's because they are not fans of their brogrammer antics. Read this thread for example (or any other Rap Genius thread on HN) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904224 The original link that was deleted was this http://aphyr.com/media/recruiters/rapgenius.txt http://aphyr.com/media/recruiters/rapgenius.txt
  - possibilistic 13y ago
    What did I just read? I don't understand that exchange at all. So Rap Genius sent a corny email to this guy trying to hire him. And...?
    - adamnemecek 13y ago
      I posted it more for the response on HN, not so much the email itself.
    - dionidium 13y ago
      ...and he said "no thanks" because he does not approve of RG's past behavior. They persisted. And then he said no again in verse form. That's pretty much the whole story.
    - vdaniuk 13y ago
      What you've just read was manufactured outrage for fun and profit.

mikeevans 13y ago

Not sure, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt that RG is a YC company.

orenbarzilai 13y ago
Google just proved all that when someone breaks their laws they punish him, even if it's a YC company. Who knows maybe because they are a well funded YC company Google decided to make an example out of them and won't forgive them so quickly.
- xuki 13y ago
  Google even penalized its own product http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pagerank-reduced-due-to-sponsored-posts-106551 http://searchengineland.com/google-chrome-page-will-have-pag...

skizm 13y ago

It is interesting to see just how much it hurts a site like RG.

belorn 13y ago

In one of the other threads, some stated that Google do not have monopoly status. The claim they used was that google only has 25% of the search market. This topic is interesting because it shows how much in a monopoly status google really is in in controlling where traffic goes on the net.

res0nat0r 13y ago
I'd replace the word monopoly with popular.
- belorn 13y ago
  "A monopoly (from Greek monos μόνος (alone or single) + polein πωλεῖν (to sell)) exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service and a lack of viable substitute goods. The verb "monopolize" refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors." - Wikipedia You can monopolize an market by popularity, and thus create a monopoly. However, monopoly and popularity is not the same word.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Google is not the only supplier to internet searches and is not excluding competitors. They are merely very popular and are thus not a monopoly.
    - throwawaykf03 13y ago
      You are interpreting "monopoly" literally. In the context of antitrust law, you only need to have a big enough market share to appear on regulators' radars. The actual market share threshold varies from country to country, but typically it's around 60%. Google certainly meets that criteria in many countries, not only for search but for online video as well. As for "excluding competitors", Google is having a tough time with antitrust regulators in the EU for exactly that. For a more obvious example, see their shenanigans with YouTube and Windows Phone.

NamTaf 13y ago

You call it a "SEO tactic" here but I'm sure you'd not bat an eyelid if it were referred to as "growth hacking" elsewhere. The problem is how much power Google holds over most of the web. You game the results and they turn their attention on you? Congrats, you're wiped out. Essentially, there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's what's interesting here.

obstacle1 13y ago
>there's a very blurry line between 'growth hacking' and 'being annihilated by Google' and no-one's really sure where it is. That's what's interesting here. Except in the cases where the line isn't blurry, i.e. the well-defined set of rules about which G has repeatedly said "we'll penalize you for ignoring these!" Unfortunately the tactic RG used wasn't a blurry-line grey-area tactic, it was one G clearly said don't use.

benihana 13y ago

>Can someone explain why this is a topic worthy of discussion? I find it incredibly interesting to know just how hard they got hit. I find it interesting that maybe someone from rap genius will be in these comments providing some extra context and insight. Can you explain why you care if other people discuss a topic you don't think is "worthy" of discussion? You know you can ignore the story and look at the entire rest of the front page, right?

ecaron 13y ago
>Can you explain why you care if other people discuss a topic you don't think is "worthy" of discussion? I thought there might be a piece to this story that I was missing. I gained a lot of value from the replies to my question (esp. the conversation spawned from @snowwrestler's comment.) >You know you can ignore the story and look at the entire rest of the front page, right? You didn't really need this in your comment. It was a bit of snark that devalued your otherwise justified response.
- d23 13y ago
  > It was a bit of snark that devalued your otherwise justified response. No it wasn't. Comments like yours are peppered throughout HN and Reddit, and the answer is always the same: the users found it interesting. It's a democratic voting system -- get over it.
  - yapcguy 13y ago
    How do you know it's a democratic voting system? Just because you assume it is, doesn't mean it is. Just ask around, plenty of stories about being mysteriously shunted off the front page. RapGenius is a YC company and always seems to get attention on HN whenever there is some kind of perceived grievance against the company. Whether it's Google or Heroku, there's always a lot of screaming and shouting.

logicallee 13y ago

For me, it's incredibly interesting because I did not find anything wrong with the tactic they used: in fact, it is far, far better than actual SPAM techniques they could have used instead. Or the bullshit tweaks to content that other sites use to improve SEO score, when those tweaks do not benefit the consumer in any way. Think about the fact that there's a human in the loop, and that it's a plug or tit-for-tat. The ways that companies actually do SEO 'within the rules' is way, way worse than that. Also as a consumer I have only been on their site < 10 times but I loved it each time. It is an actual benefit for them to gain ranking. They have a real service, and a good one. It also seems quite genuine, from the tone of the email. Totally normal. You might think I have some association with rapgenius, but I don't: my only association is that the handful of times I got to their site, I was absolutely thankful and totally surprised at the quality of the result. By contrast, there is a good chance there are textual quotations I've searched for where I missed good commentary there that I would have appreciatied. All of these aspects, especially above-all the fact that consumers are happy when they do get to the rapgenius site, that combine to make this story very interesting to me. I see rapgenius as the good guys, and very honest, in their attempt to gain additional exposure on real content.

joelrunyon 13y ago

The funny thing about this whole controversy is that they're getting more organic links to rapgenius. When the penalty is taken care of - they may be sitting in a better position than they were previously.

d23 13y ago
I don't think organic links matter much at this point when you can't even Google their name and find them on the front page.
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  That's why I included "When the penalty is taken care of" in my statement.
d0ugie 13y ago
If you're right, and were this actually intentional too, well, that would be genius. But given that their traffic is maybe off two-thirds now and that it is unknown how long google will leave the lights on (weeks, maybe months), during which time this will be long-flushed out of the news cycle and it becomes harder and harder to recover, and harder to secure things like more capital when you look this stupid, that's a high-risk bet. I'd say sabotage is more likely.

ruswick 13y ago

Why? Because the sheer magnitude is crazy. Rap Genius's traffic fell by nearly two thirds! This is a very prominent, YC-affiliated startup that is being nuked by Google. It should come as no surprise that the news is seen as significant by the HN crowd. Moreover, I think many people are upset with the scope of Google's punishment. De-weighting RG is one thing, nuking it into the ground is entirely different, and is in my opinion unwarranted. Even searching directly for the name of the site does not yield any Rap Genius results. If I type "Rap Genius" into Google, I am justified in expecting Rap Genius to be the first result. Period. When Google goes out of its way to effectively expunge a site from existence (to the extent that Google can expunge a site), they are doing a massive disservice to their users and are degrading the quality of their search results. There is no reason that a response of this magnitude by Google is justified, and by issuing such a draconian response, Google has lessened the usability of their product and done a disservice to their users.

GuiA 13y ago
>De-weighting RG is one thing, nuking it into the ground is entirely different, and is in my opinion unwarranted. If I type "Rap Genius" into Google, I am justified in expecting Rap Genius to be the first result. Period. When Google goes out of its way to effectively expunge a site from existence (to the extent that Google can expunge a site), they are doing a massive disservice to their users and are degrading the quality of their search results. Necessary reminder that Google does whatever the fuck they want with their service, and that no one is in a position to expect anything. Does it suck? Yes. Is it a predictable outcome of the free market on which Silicon Valley and the tech industry in General is built? You bet.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Moreover, I think many people are upset with the scope of Google's punishment. De-weighting RG is one thing, nuking it into the ground is entirely different, and is in my opinion unwarranted. If the impact wasn't significant, it wouldn't be a disincentive to engage in black hat SEO. > There is no reason that a response of this magnitude by Google is justified Yes, there are reasons. The reasons are "specific deterrence" and "general deterrence".
13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Fundamentally it is the magnitude. Web sites often manage themselves to a metric called "RPM" or revenue per thousand. It can be thousand 'views' or for people who are interested in accuracy per thousand 'visits'. Unique IPs often translate as a good metric for 'visits'. So if your traffic is 1.5M uniques and drops to .5 uniques, then your revenue may also have just dropped 66%. If you were staffed to be cash flow positive at your previous traffic rate, you now find yourself burning cash at an alarming rate. Your response, dictated by your reserves, is either lay off a bunch of people to curb your burn rate, or delay your accounts payable, or both. If this happens at an 'inconvienient' time, it can sour acquisitions in process, or deals with initial outlays, to be blunt it can kill you. So then here is the thing, Google has no good way of knowing how you got to your organic ranking. There is no 'what is the rank of this place without these links' sorts of computations. So there isn't a good way to judge. But judge they must, lest others abuse their algorithm, and so they do so. Now lets speculate that they kill off Rap Genius. Overall what does that do? Who does it help? Is it justice? Lots of thorny ethical questions, not many good answers. And no way to make restitution. A sad place to be.