If you’ve looked up hip-hop lyrics on Google before, it is almost guaranteed that you have visited the Rap Genius site. It had been the first choice on the search engine list for every possible rap lyric for some time now. So much so that Billboard wrote an article earlier this month: “How Rap Genius Won The SEO Game”. Ironically, their SEO practices are what brought them down. Google is punishing Rap Genius by rendering them virtually unsearchable.
The vast majority of Rap Genius’ traffic comes from Google, so this is a huge blow to their site. They went from being the the first presented option to being relegated to the middle of the seventh page. Ouch. Even if you type in, for example, “Jay-Z lyrics rap genius” there is no link that will take you to the actual site until the 5th page. That is Google purgatory.
Google is punishing Rap Genius because they were found to be soliciting page links on people’s personal sites in exchange for twitter blasts that would lead traffic to their pages. John Marbach blew the whistle on the operation when he leaked the email from Rap Genius co-owner Mahbod Moghadam where they essentially lay out their SEO fraud. Marbach breaks down their scheme:
RapGenius makes its business off music lyrics. Millions of people search the lyrics to their favorite songs daily. RapGenius wants to be the first result that people click on when people are searching for any lyric.
Their business depends on their search engine ranking position (SERP’s) on Google. Hyperlinks connect the web and determine SERP’s. Thus, the most powerful weapon RapGenius can deploy is a series of powerful hyperlinks. You can see in Mahbod’s email that he is asking for hyperlinks from high-page rank sites (personal blogs) with anchor text that mentions tracks from Bieber’s most recent album.
Furthermore, the 80-20 rule applied to RapGenius’s business indicates that 80% of their traffic comes from only a select 20% of their lyrics database. According to Alexa.com, “Get Lucky” and “Holy Grail” were the top traffic drivers to RapGenius for most of 2013. However, music is highly cyclical, and the traffic from previous winners will eventually fade. Looking forward into 2014, it’s only logical that RapGenius would hope for Bieber’s new songs to refer them enormous traffic.
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Summary
- RapGenius wants to grow quickly.
- In order to grow quickly, they need to rank well on Google searches for Justin Bieber’s new songs.
- In order to rank well, they need backlinks with anchor text that specifically mention Bieber’s songs.
- They are reaching out to their friends asking for backlinks in exchange for a tweet.
Essentially, they’re trying to trick Google into thinking that they’re getting legitimate links. Google does not take lightly to being bamboozled. Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search, made the final decision on punishment, and some within the tech industry are calling the measure “pretty harsh”. It would seem that many people are snickering about the entire situation because the owners of Rap Genius have a history of being smug assholes.
For their part, Rap Genius is trying desperately to clean up their mess and return to Google’s good graces. They said in a statement to TechCrunch on Wednesday:
“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.
It sucks to be off Google for us and for the thousands of our community members who have worked so hard to create what’s often the best search result.
We hope everyone who reads this will take a little time out from their Christmas and head to Rap Genius and sign up so you can contribute your knowledge on your favorite subjects – becoming a member of our community makes the site way more fun. Merry Christmas”