January 5, 2014 – Update — And Rap Genius is off the hook with Google and back to getting traffic. So far their ratting out of their competition doesn’t seem to have gotten anyone else penalized; we’ll keep an eye on things and update as it unfolds.
Why the Rap Genius Story Is Really About Google | Entrepreneur.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230602
After Getting Nuked By Google, Rap Genius Groveled And Self-Flagellated — And Now They’re Back
http://www.businessinsider.com/rap-genius-is-back-in-googles-rankings-2014-1
*****************************************************
Edit post publication — Spin argues that Rap Genius was scamming Google, we’ll see if Danny Sullivan changes his verdict from maybe to surely in the days to come.
*****************************************************
It’s hard to sort the wheat from the chaff sometimes. And the current situation with Rap Genius is definitely one of those. Frankly, I wouldn’t give those buffoons a dime and cannot understand why anyone else invested in them, it just doesn’t make sense. They operate in the unlicensed, or rather, thieving world of using other people’s creative work for their own gain (according to Rolling Stone’s recent article), and disregard for copyright and creative licensing fees… but wait, that could very well have been an indication of what was to come… and now they’ve been slapped up side the head by none other than Google, for a scheme in which they appear to have been violating the search engine giant’s terms of service. Their affiliate program might possibly have been a big scam, er, scheme, to get themselves Google traffic en masse and without following the officially sanctioned path and now they’re being punished. Seriously, one could just wish that they’d all go away anyway. I get it, the system gets gamed all the time, and that’s the way it goes. But their brand of self promotion is just a little too blatant and a little too over the top to swallow, so of course I can hope they’re outta here!
SearchEngineLand reported on Christmas Day that Google Has Officially Penalized Rap Genius For Link Schemes. It’s not just SEL, though. Adweek, Gawker (a la Valleywag) and others (do a quick scan of your LinkedIn newsfeed) all feature at least a medium sized blurb on the travails of the company and the current lack of alleged ill gotten gains flowing into their coffers.
But wait, they’re releasing an app – for Android, since Apple won’t have them in the iTunes store currently (probably smart, given the amount of artist royalties they’re paying out every second of every day) and possibly never.
Any bets on how long it takes them to run afoul of the Google Play store with gaming their charting and other misadventures?