3 ms·

This was not greyhat. This was blackhat. Paying money for inbound links on keywords that trasnfer page rank (don't include NOFOLLOW) has been blackhat for a L

• blauwbilgorgel 13y ago
  It was Panama hat. Rap Genius did not pay money, they offered a tweet. In a crude and obvious enough way to be a little scheme-y. Which unfortunately for RG was picked up in the media. "even I was scratching my head to figure out if this was actually a Google violation or not. Rap Genius’s apology post had the company deciding itself that maybe it violated guidelines that links should be “editorially placed." - Danny Sullivan. At least now we know. This is blackhat.
  • JohnTHaller 13y ago
    Paying with a Tweet from an account with a large number of followers (which definitely has value) instead of money is still paying. At best, it's basically a link exchange, which is also not allowed.