Ask HN: Why is Rap Genius Getting So Much Hacker News Attention?

3 pointsptwobrussell3 comments

Because they are a YC company. There's really no other reason. YC companies always get disproportionate coverage at HN. If you're confused as to why, look at the URL in your browser's address bar.

Other than that, Rag Genius has a... polarizing... management team that engaged in blackhat SEO techniques (buying links to attempt to bost pagerank with payment in the form of Tweeting about the link provider's website from a high-follower Twitter account) to boost their Google ranking and has received an appropriate punishment (in line with what Google has been doing for years now).

just to play devil's advocate, page ranking is extremely critical for lyrics websites, where every website is functionally identical. you could argue that rapgenius' tweet-for-link scheme was necessary to compete in a marketplace full of lyrics sites that actually buy links for money or employ other darker-hat techniques.

Page ranking is extremely critical for all kinds of websites. So, there's all kinds of reasons for people to cheat the system. And, when cheaters get caught, they get the appropriate page rank penalty. Saying 'but this other site paid for backlinks with money, we only paid with tweets' isn't really an appropriate defense.

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