[itsprofitbaron]

Essentially Rap Genius violated one of Google's Webmaster Guidelines[1] by attempting to manipulate the SERPs through getting webmasters to link to several lyrics pages in exchange for a tweet. In doing so, Google considers this as link scheme[2] which is trying to manipulate the results specifically in relation to Buying/Selling Links:

  Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link

There are several other ways to "manipulate" the SERPs this way including some of them which you have identified such as - spam comments, doorway pages, forum profiles amongst others - and Google has an algorithm codenamed Penguin which, detects and penalises webmasters who attempt to manipulate the search engines in such way (although it is more complicated than this).

However, Penguin is not the only way which Google identifies people being involved in these practices as they also have a place to report the links[3].

This is one of Google's Manual Actions[4] that webmasters receive, when Google believes you are not providing the user with additional value and/or are trying to manipulate the results.

They cover everything from Thin Content (mainly through Panda) to Hacked Sites to User Generated Spam to the recent Image Mismatch Penalty etc. You can see them all here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/2604771?hl=en&re...

[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769

[2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356

[3] https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks?pli=1&hl=e...

[4] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604824?hl=en

[usaphp]

> ...by attempting to manipulate the SERPs through getting webmasters to link to several lyrics pages in exchange for a tweet.

How is that different from paying bloggers to write a product review with a link to a product? Why is not that considered a "manipulation of SERPs" - you exchange (money/tweet) for a link.

[itsprofitbaron]

It's not different. As mentioned earlier, paying for links is against one of Google's Webmaster Guidelines[1] and your example specifically falls under the Link Scheme[2] category which is affecting Rap Genius.

Those types of links reviews for a link, are considered advertorials which Interflora were "famously" penalised[3] for and something Google specifically identifies within their Link Scheme examples[2]

[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769

[2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356

[3] http://searchengineland.com/google-says-no-comment-on-why-in...

[phillmv]

Wait.

I was about to ask if the lesson to draw here was to make it look organic.

But mostly serious question here: how does TechCrunch have any Google rank then? How do most tech publications, for that matter? PR hits are extremely common; they're the name of the game when it comes to cheap content.

It's okay if it looks like it's mutual self interest, and not if it overtly competes with Google's advertising platform?

[itsprofitbaron]

how does TechCrunch have any Google rank then? How do most tech publications, for that matter?

TechCrunch does not post advertorials, they post content for free and they actually posted on their site to reaffirm this fact[1].

Sure there may be some PR firms etc who might get paid to get that content on to TechCrunch or another tech publications but TechCrunch writers are not directly compensated for doing so.

As a result the content they write from a startup launch to a new feature etc is considered "natural" by the search engines as they're choosing to write about it.

Moreover, those publications get the majority of their search engine traffic through being in Google News ala. posting about "Twitter" and getting inserted into the "Twitter" SERPs within the "News" section. Additionally they also leverage internal linking to boost their SERPs potential e.g. whenever they talk about Zulily (they're in #9 for me in Incognito mode although they might be higher/ on Page 2 for you) instead of linking to the site they'll reference the "Tag URL"[2] as well as referencing Crunchbase[3] (although CrunchBase isn't really 'internal' as its an external site). Likewise, Google loves "fresh content" so they will naturally be inserted with little/no links within the top 7ish results for something generic (although this does not always happen) such as "credit card numbers" when they do a post about "credit card numbers" and will naturally lose search engine positioning for that term over time.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/we-are-worth-at-least-3k/

[2] http://techcrunch.com/tag/zulily/

[3] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/zulily

[RBerenguel]

It's not different, and Google will penalise as needed (if the site is unrelated to the reviewed object, for instance, also the FTC can sue if there is no proper disclaimer)

[tehwebguy]

Interesting, does that make sponsored posts necessarily against TOS?

[itsprofitbaron]

Sponsored Posts are what Google calls advertorials and considered to be a link scheme[1] which means they're against their webmaster guidelines[2].

However, they're acceptable if they do not carry any link equity (aka. use the no follow tag) on the link.

[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356

[2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

[graeme]

Interesting. I am in a small niche, where a lot of student society websites ending in .edu have links to their sponsors, and they don't nofollow them.

Typically they don't know what nofollow is, and their sites are run by people who don't really know much about websites.

I can't educate the entire sector. Is it better to steer clear of link building with this broad swath of sites? Most of the other sites in my niche have built links through these sites.

There is a shortage of followed links in my niche as most content creators in my narrow field are commercial and don't link to competitors.

[sharkweek]

Nah -- it's just like buying ad space on a site though, so the links to your site should be nofollowed.