Why does https://www.directlyrics.com have a TITLE of "Azlyrics" and an H1 of "Azlyrics" but http://www.azlyrics.com seems to be an entirely unrelated web site? The latter is typically what I end up at when I search for song lyrics if I click one of the first few links (though if I want to read some amusing analysis, usually there is a Genius.com link a few below).
Yes, good eye. A great example of continuious testing SEO opportunities.
What if Google would start ranking directlyrics on specific 'azlyrics' queries? I haven't seen it happen yet, but if it worked... expect it to be reverted next week.
It's AZLyrics's responsibility to police their own trademarks, so it's okay, unless they say it is not in a C&D letter.
So it's legally okay, as far as we know.
Still a dick move, though. It's not okay in my opinion. But I'm not the one who may gain or lose thousands of dollars by deciding whether or not to do it, either. I can't say for certain whether it would be okay or not from outside my comfy judgment armchair.
It's blatant, intentional trademark infringement for direct commercial gain. IANAL, but I would think this might result in something quite a bit more expensive than a C&D -- like a lawsuit with punitive damages.
ETA: and now the site owner is on record here on HN stating that the intent was to steal search traffic. I'm sure this is a cutthroat business ... but this is an open invitation for one's own throat to be cut.
Where did the initial seeding of all the lyrics & bands come from? Also, are most of the new lyrics contributed by users and if so how do you handle authenticating that the lyrics provided are accurate?
My license provider has a database of over 1.2M lyrics.
But matter of fact is that Directlyrics hosts only around 10k. A decision made early on to focus on less pages compared to competitors that needed to rank 1M+ paghes.