After some light repenting and a scramble to right its wrongs, Rap Genius is back on Google. In a new blog post, the lyrics annotation site apologized once again for its use of spammy SEO manipulation and claimed that it's "officially back," after having been walloped by Google.
"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," the Rap Genius founders wrote, before delving into an explanation of how the site's SEO strategy spiralled out of control and earned it rightful punishment from Google and scorn from the public.
According to Rap Genius' founders, it all began with a valid linking strategy that took an eventual turn for the worst over the past couple of months with the embedding of irrelevant, but highly trafficable, links at the bottom of posts and, in turn, illegitimately boosting search result rankings. But Rap Genius says it has learned from its mistake and that it intends to leave the shadiness in the past.
"To Google and our fans: we’re sorry for being such morons. We regret our foray into irrelevant unnatural linking," the post reads. "The only way to fully appreciate and benefit from Rap Genius is to sign up for an account and use Rap Genius – not as a substitute for Wikipedia or lyrics sites, but as a social network where curious and intelligent people gather to socialize and engage in close reading of text."
