"Don't be evil"
Rapgenius got punished for playing the game better than anyone else.
Who's to say this couldn't happen to highly relevant sources of information? Wikipedia? Underground sites?
This is the equivalent of censorship.
Rapgenius got punished for playing the game better than anyone else.
Who's to say this couldn't happen to highly relevant sources of information? Wikipedia? Underground sites?
This is the equivalent of censorship.
Second, RapGenius cheated the system. They knew they were cheating the system. They violated the public guidelines that tell you not to cheat the system. And now they are paying the price.
Why is that so difficult to grasp?
Their emails were wanton risk, the wording had no stealth; they got what they deserved.
Exactly so. It seems they were doing it in the open because they didn't understand that anyone would object.
I'm sorry, what? Didn't they lose the game?
How is penalizing them for engaging in shady SEO tactics considered censorship?
When I google "rapgenius eminem" they don't appear in the results. That's pretty close to censorship.
I'm not necessarily against it, but I don't disagree with the usage of the term.
You can also go to rapgenius.com and search for eminem yourself. Or navigate a few pages in the search results until you find the link.
Think of it this way, if I want to be listed in a phonebook but I'm an obviously shady actor and the phonebook company refuses, is that censorship? You play by the rules if you want to be ranked.
I get that you play the rules. They're being censored for not playing by the rules.
The "game" RapGenius played was the act of being evil.
Let's get some perspective here. They were offering to promote people's pages in return for them linking back to them. Far from being evil, this isn't even illegal.
They broke the TOS and Google rightfully enforced it.
This was stupid, it wasn't evil.
Also, they could have submitted their site to Google.
Blackhat SEO out in the open is not a good game.
It isn't the equivalent of censorship, it's rewarding the good behavior of the competition.