Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO

Re:Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO by ericabiz on Wednesday December 25, 2013 @05:03PM (#6964424)

This post is a day old, but I wanted to add this in in case others think that Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) has not been penalized: http://moz.com/blog/widgetbait-gone-wild

"We soon ranked for competitive keywords such as "Cash Advance," "Payday Loans," and a few EDU lead generation terms. Our success led to Google receiving a number of spam complaints along with some unfavorable press in the Guardian that referred to me as genius/fiend. The consequence of all of this is that we were penalized by Google. We no longer ranked for "Free Online Dating" and other dating related keywords. In fact, we no longer even rank for very brand-specific keywords such as "JustSayHi". In short, we had been completely banned from search results.

As soon as we discovered that we had been penalized, we immediately filed a reconsideration request. Matt Cutts got involved in the case personally, but after a couple of emails, the penalty was not lifted."

Sounds familiar!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO by davemel37 on Wednesday December 25, 2013 @07:44PM (#6964852)

Thanks for the link. What a great discussion from the old seomoz days...

I think matt's strategy today would be more of a growth hack than a link building strategy. I think egobait still works quite well.

[ Parent | on HN ]