Rap Genius Returns To Google Search Rankings

theodp writes "After being punished by Google for manipulative SEO tactics, a contrite Rap Genius says it's back in Google's good graces. 'It takes a few days for things to return to normal, but we're officially back!' reads a post by the Rap Genius founders. 'First of all, we owe a big thanks to Google for being fair and transparent and allowing us back onto their results pages. We overstepped, and we deserved to get smacked.' Rap Genius credits some clever trackback scraping programming for its quick redemption, but a skeptic might suggest it probably didn't hurt that Rap Genius' biggest investor, Andreessen Horowitz, is tight with Google."

Comments

Rap "Genius"?

[cold fjord]

Q: Rap Genius?
A: Oxymoron

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is about as bigoted as, "Geeks are people that have no social skills, yet still insist on pushing their electronic 'tools' on people. It is hardly possible to be more arrogant and incompetent as a human."

I don't particularly enjoy rap, but it is evidently a musical form, and - just as with any art - doing it badly is easy, but doing it well is hard.

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[camg188]

Summary of the video:
* Rap Genius is a website that provides crowdsourced text annotation services.
* It got it's name because it originally provided "decoding" of rap lyrics so little Joe Schmoe could figure out what "beez in the trap" means.* But now they want to provide text annotation to documents of all kinds of subjects.

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[GoogleShill]

You need to look up the definition of objective, because you really don't have a clue what it means, nor have you produced any evidence supporting your subjective opinion.

Unsurprisingly you didn't mention what type of music you happen to like. It's only childish trolling to criticize others while not exposing your own interests and likes.

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[wooferhound]

Just my point. I also believe that quite a few "Rappers" are actually pretty competent scam artists that use bogus "cultural identity" memes to sell their trash. Seems to be working well. There is a sucker born every minute...

A lot like the wrestling shows on TV, a guy making money by portraying himself as somebody he isn't to sell their trash

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[YesThatsMeImHere]

Taking into consideration this post and the first anonymous troll post that went in this direction, that you probably also wrote: It's impossible to draw the conclusion that something is "objectively bad" based on subjective statements like a component of it "being rubbish" or "sounding like utter shit". You're trolling, but you know, I like it when "low hanging fruit" helps making a very simple and objectively non-refutable point. (See what I did there?) Also, lyrical content is not really genre specific. Sometimes you can rap a lyric that wasn't written to be rapped, or sing a lyric that wasn't meant to be sung. Therefore, your point doesn't really work, as you're aware of. On a slightly more ad populum note: You really have to be stubborn if you see a crowd of ten thousdands of people dancing and jumping around and still not accept that they're doing it because of music. Comparing listening one of the best selling musical genres to playing with feces.. well. Doesn't make a lot of sense, in practice. You know, if you're into psychology and not being insane and all that. Also, it can't be "not music" and "bad music" at the same time. It can obviously not really be "objectively bad music" or "objectively bad poetry" in the first place. You're objectively bad at being a troll. Some rap lyrics are actually pretty darn clever. Black metal, now there's a genre that's objectively terrible all the way!

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[Merls the Sneaky]

Before either poetry or rap is spoken aloud they can both be words written on a page. Both can also not be written on a page. The page is just a recording medium. or can poetry not be recorded on a CD and still be considered poetry?

Re:Rap "Genius"?

[Merls the Sneaky]

Ad hominem attack, nice to see you keeping it classy!

1) Popularity does not always equal quality, but I never claimed it had to be quality. You said it took no talent therefore anyone can do it.
2) I never claimed talking = music. I consider rap to be more akin to poetry. But you will find rap in the music charts, along with many other "artists" a lot of people also consider to not have any talent.
3) You're claiming it takes no talent and with a payout like that why wouldn't you? Unless of course it does take some sort of talent that you don't have.

I'm not your "homie", I don't even know anyone that owns a gun, nor do I work in the music industry, additionally someone that opens with an ad hominem attack is not an intellectual and certainly not superior.

who?

[Anonymous Coward]

who?

Re:who?

[lxs]

The people who bought this ad space.

Slashdot

[dale.furno]

Delete this stupid article and smack whoever posted it. what a load of useless shit.

Re:Google ....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm up for joining your startup to build a better search engine. You obviously have some clever ideas on how to do it.

Slashdot keeps on pushing the boundaries

[mutube]

Unfortunately, it's the boundaries of how un-newsworthy content can be and still be called "news".

Someone I've never heard of does dodgy SEO, gets banned by Google, then gets the ban lifted (+- unproven allegation of favouritism) and I'm supposed to give a shit?

Happens every day, almost entirely to other people I've never heard of either.

Re:Slashdot keeps on pushing the boundaries

[Frosty Piss]

Unfortunately, it's the boundaries of how un-newsworthy content can be and still be called "news".

Someone "modded" it up at the Firehose, and Soulskill put it on the front page... It's probably a Slashvert, either paid to Dice or more likely paid to Soulskill.

Time to drive the hipsters out of the industry.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in the computing industry since the 1970s. I've seen trends come, and I've seen trends go. I've seen people come, I've seen people go. I've seen companies come, I've seen companies go. I've seen technologies come, I've seen technologies go.

But over these several decades of experience, the worst, and I mean the very worst, people I've ever had to deal with are the hipsters that have weaseled their way in since 2008 or so. They've advocated for some of the worst technologies we've ever seen (JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, NoSQL), while engaging in some of the ugliest business and social practices (collecting and selling huge amounts of private information, "lifestyle businesses", scummy SEO tactics).

They aren't contained just to industry, either. They've got their rotten tentacles into open source projects, too. They've almost single-handedly destroyed GNOME 3 at this point. Firefox is not far behind. And their obsession with git (and GitHub) has basically destroyed the practice of proper releases, especially of libraries.

We need to shun these people. Anyone hiring in industry should avoid them at all costs. Anyone working on open source projects should refuse to let them contribute. While open source projects are often in desperate need of help, this is surely not the kind of help that is needed. We don't need hipsters involved with software development of any type.

the advertizing genius

[BringsApples]

I didn't RTFA I didn't even finish reading the whole summary. This is stupid advertizing. This makes me feel like looking for other news outlets...

Re:the advertizing genius

[BringsApples]

Thanks for the info. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

I think my cable company told me basically the same thing when I cut them out of my life 8 years ago, for so much advertizing. Turns out, there's a big push for getting rid of advertizing these days, by many folks. I guess you could get with the fine folks over at Netflix and see if they agree.

You may also be able to get with the folks at slashdot, like 10 years ago. Each article used to draw in at least 350 responses. These days, looks like 100 is about average, 350 is going to have something to do with the NSA, and 150-200 will be a good discussion about actual 'news for nerds, stuff that matters'. I'm sure that if they keep up the same lazy editing, shotty stories, and advertizing, in another 10 years slashdot will be all but gone. If Google News enable a discussion for viewers, then slashdot should be very worried.

Re:the advertizing genius

[umghhh]

this maybe because the tech that was once newsworthy is not anymore. Either not a breaktrough or even so it is so complicated and/or sophisticated that nobody (i.e. fewer than 10 indihviduals) understands. It was once possible to write tools that mattered on your own - what was it last time when it happened?
Looking at different angle - the geeky stuff about say obfuscated C code - how many answers does that get? All the allure and all the geeks are gone. Only some stubborn autists are still out there thinking C or C++ is stuff that matters. Gosh if Software mattered they would actually fix internet of pipes (or what was it called lately) so that no fuckhead can sue me for IP or some other shit. And NSA shit matters - we gave up our privacy one way or the other long time ago. We have no control over this and there are smart people out there using this mistake. How to fix that is a matter of urgency. NSA discussions do not really help that much - I admit this much as majority just does standard knee jerk stuff and throws abuse at NSA without thinking about say FB and other 'good guys'.

So yes /. changed. Geeks changed and Stuff that matters changed too. Especially stuff that matters changed is a major factor: it is not some obscure piece of code but rather complex stuff like privacy and technical solutions that can support it. I may be mistaken but that is one of the biggest things that shape this century. There is a lot at stake: on one hand our freedoms on the other criminals. The internet that is free of all earthly limitations is not anymore. Clear that such important issue takes a lots of attention. Clear that the other tech stories even if coming in the same size and importance as before (which they do not) would attract less attention.

Having said all this - tfa here is really substandard.